SHAKESPEARE'S 



LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS 



CONSIDERED. 



BY 

JOHN LORD CAMPBELL, LL.D., F.R.S.E. 



A LETTER TO J:.I>ATNE COLLIEE, Esq., F.S.A. 



"Tliou art cUrhly^ thou art clerhly I " 

Merry Wi/ces of Wmdsor. 



NEW YOKK : 
D. APPLETOK AND COMPANY, 

346 «& 848 BKOADWAT. 
M.DCCC.LIX. 



£3 

copy ^ 



WW 






PREEACE. ^^ 



When my old and valued friend, Mr. Payne 
Collier, received the following Letter, whicli 
I wrote with, a view to assist Mm in Ms 
Shakespearian lucubrations, he forthwith, in 
terms which I should like to copy if they 
wcxc; not so comj^limentary, strongly recom- 
mended me to print and publish it in my 
own name, — intimating that I might thus 
have "the glory of placing a stone on the 
lofty OAiEN of our immortal bard." If he 
had said a '^;pebhle," the word would have 
been more appropriate. But the hope of 
maMng any addition, even if infinitesimally 
small, to this great national monument, is 
enough to induce me to follow my friend's 
advice, although I am aware that by the at- 
tempt I shall be exposed to some peril. In 



PREFACE. 



pointing out Shakespeare's frequent use of 
law-phrases, and tlie strict propriety witli 
•whicli lie always applies them, the Chief 
Justice may he likened to the Cobbler, 
who, when shown the masterpiece of a great 
painter, representing the Pope surrounded by 
an interesting historical group, could not be 
prevailed upon to notice any beauty in the 
painting, except the skilful structure of a 
slipper worn by his Holiness. 

Nevertheless I may meet with kinder 
critics, and some may think it right to coun- 
tenance any effort to bring about a " fusion 
of Law and Literature,'' which, like '^ Law 
and Equity," have too long been kept apart 
in England. 

Steatheden House, Jan, 1, 1859. 



CONTENTS 



IXTEODUCTION, 


PAGE 

. 7 


The Merey "Wives of "Windsor, 


39 


Measure for Measure, 


. 41 


The Comedy of Errors, 


44 


As Yoij Like It, . 


. 47 


Much Ado about IsTothixg, 


53 


Loye's Labour's Lost, 


. 56 


Midsummer !N"ight's Dream, 


57 


The Merchant of Venice, 


. 59 


The Taming of the Shrew, 


63 


All's Well that Ends Well, 


. 67 


The Winter's Tale, 


71 


King John, 


. 74 


King Henry the Fourth, Part L, 


78 


King Henry the Fourth, Part IL, 


. 82 


King Henry the Sixth, Part IL, 


91 


Troilus and Ceessida, 


. 96 


King Lear, .... 


97 


Hamlet, . • . , 


. 103 


Macbeth, • • • • 


. Ill 



6 CONTENTS. 






PAGE 


Othello, ..... 


. 112 


Antony and Cleopatea, 


iir 


COKIOLANUS, .... 


. 119 


EoMEO AND Juliet, 


120 


Poems, ..... 


. 123 


Shakespeare's Wttt,, 


. 128 


Keteospeot, , . . • 


132 



SHAEESPEARE'S 

LEGAL ACQUIRE]\IENTS CONSIDERED. 



To J. Payne Collier^ JEsq.^ 

Riverside^ Maidenhead^ JBerks. 



Hartrigge, Jedburgh, K B. 
September 15th, 1858. 

My dear Mr. Payne Collier^ 

Knowing that I take great deligM in 
Shakespeare's plays, and that I have paid 
some attention to the common law of this 
realm, and recollecting that both in my ' Lives 
of the Chancellors/ and in my ' Lives of the 
Chief Justices/ I have glanced at the subject 
of Shakespeare's legal acquirements, you de- 
mand rather peremptorily my opinion upon 
the question keenly agitated of late years, 

whether Shakespeare was a clerk in an at- 
1* 



SHAKESPEAKE's legal ACQTJIEEMEN18, 



torney's office at Stratford before he joined 
the players in London ? 

From your indefatigable researches and 
yonr critical acumen, which have thrown so 
much new light upon the career of our un- 
rivalled dramatist, I say, with entire sincerity, 
that there is no one so well qualified as your- 
self to speak authoritatively in this contro- 
versy, and I observe that in both the editions 
of your ' Life of Shakesj)eare ' you are strongly 
inclined to the belief that the author of ^ Ham- 
let ' was employed some years in engrossing 
deeds, serving writs, and making out bills of 
costs. 

However, as you seem to consider it still 
an open question, and as I have a little leisure 
during this long vacation,. I cannot refuse to 
communicate to you my sentiments upon the 
subject, and I shall be happy if, from my pro- 
fessional knowledge and experience, I can 
afford you any information or throw out any 
hints which may be useful to you hereafter. 
I myself, at any rate, must derive some bene- 
fit from the task, as it will for a while drive 
from my mind the recollection of the wrang- 



A CASE FOE A JUEY. V 

lings of Westminster Hall. In literary pur- 
suits sliould I have wished ever to be en- 
gaged,— 

" Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam 
Auspiciis, et sponte mea componere curas." 

Having read nearly all that has been writ- 
ten on Shakespeare's ante-Londinensian life, 
and carefully examined his writings with a 
view to obtain internal evidence as to his edu- 
cation and breeding, I am obliged to say that 
to the question you propound no positive an- 
swer can very safely be given. 

Were an issue tried before me as Chief 
Justice at the Warwick assizes, "whether 
William Shakespeare, late of Stratford-upon- 
Avon, gentleman, ever was clerk in an at- 
torney's office in Stratford-upon-Avon afore- 
said," I should hold that there is evidence to 
go to the jury in support of the affirmative, 
but I should add that the evidence is very far 
from being conclusive, and I should tell the 
twelve gentlemen in the box that it is a case 
entirely for their decision, — without venturing 
even to hiat to them, for their guidance, any 



10 shakespeaee's legal acquiresients. 

oj)iiiion of my own. Sliould tliey unanimously 
agree in a verdict either in the affirmative or 
negative, I do not think that the court, sitting 
in banco, could properly set it aside and grant 
a new trial. But the probability is (particu- 
larly if the trial were by a special jury of Fel- 
lows of the Society of Antiquaries) that, after 
they had been some hours in deliberation, I 
should receive a message from them — " there 
is no cliance of our agreeing, and therefore 
zue tvish to he discharged ; " that having sent 
for th-em into court, and read them a lecture 
on the duty imposed upon them by law of 
being unanimous, I should be obliged to order 
them to be locked up for the night ; that 
having sat up all night without eating or 
drinking, and " without fire, candle-light ex- 
cepted," ''•■ they would come into court next 

* These are the words of the oath administered to 
the bailijQt' into Avhose custody the jurymen are dehver- 
ed. I had lately to determine whether gas-lamps could 
be considered "candle-light." Infavoremmtm^l-yeu.- 
tured to rule in the affirmative ; and, the night being 
very cold, to order that the lamps should be liberally 
supplied with gas, so that, directly administering light 
according to law, they might, contrary to law, inciden- 
tally administer heat. 



CONSPIEACY OF THE CRITICS. 11 

morning pale and ghastly, still saying ^^ ive 
cannot agree," and that, according to the 
rigour of the law, I ought to order them to be 
again locked up as before till the close of the 
assizes, and then sentence them to be put into 
a cart, to accompany me in my progress 
towards the next assize town, and to be shot 
into a ditch on the confines of the county of 
Warwick. 

Yet in the hope of giving the gentlemen 
of the jury a chance of escaping these horrors, 
to which, according to the existing state of 
the law, they would be exposed, and desiring, 
without departing from my impartiality, to 
assist them in coming to a just conclusion, I 
should not hesitate to state, with some ear- 
nestness, that there has been a great deal of 
misrepresentation and delusion as to Shake- 
speare's opportunities when a youth of ac- 
quiring knowledge, and as to the knowledge 
he had acquired. From a love of the incredi- 
ble, and a wish to make what he afterwards 
accomplished actually miraculous, a band of 
critics have conspired to lower the condition 
of his father, and to represent the son, when 



12 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

approaching man's estate, as still almost 
wholly illiterate. We have been told that 
his father was a butcher in a small provincial 
town ; that " pleasant Willy " was bred to 
his father's business ; that the only early in- 
dication of genius which he betrayed was his 
habitj while killing a calf, eloquently to 
harangue the bystanders ; that he continued 
in this occupation till he was obliged to fly 
the country for theft ; that arriving in Lon- 
don a destitute stranger, he at first supported 
himself by receiving pence for holding gentle- 
men's horses at the theatre ; that he then 
contrived to scrape an acquaintance with some 
of the actors, and being first employed as 
prompter, although he had hardly learned to 
read, he was allowed to play some very inferior 
parts himself ; — and that without any farther 
training he produced ' Kichard III.,' ' Othel- 
lo,' ^ Macbeth,' and ' King Lear.' But, 
whether Shakespeare ever had any juridical 
education or not, I think it is established be- 
yond all doubt that his father was of a re- 
spectable family, had some real property by 
descent, married a coheiress of an ancient 



GENTILITY "OF HIS FATHEE. 13 

house^ received a grant of armorial bearings 
from the Heralds with, a recognition of his 
lineage^ was for many years an Alderman of 
Stratford^ and, after being intrusted by the 
Corporation to manage their finances as Cham- 
berlain, served the office of Chief Magistrate 
of the town. There are entries in the Cor- 
23oration books sujDposed to indicate that at 
one period of his life he was involved in pe- 
cuniaiy difficulties ; but this did not detract 
from his gentility, as is proved by the subse- 
quent confirmation of his armorial bearings, 
with a sHght alteration in his quarterings, — 
and he seems still to have lived respectably in 
Stratford or the neighbourhood.* That he 

* I am aware of your suggestion in your ' Life of 
Shakespeare,' that the first grant of arms to the father 
was at a subsequent time, when the son, although he 
had acquired both popularity and property, was, on 
account of his profession (then supposed to be unfit for 
a gentleman), not qualified to bear arms. But the 
" Confirmation " in 1596 recites that a patent had been 
before granted by Clarencieux Cooke to John Shake- 
speare, when chief magistrate of Stratford, and, as a 
ground for the Confirmation, that this original patent 
had been sent to the Heralds' Ofiice when Sir William 
Dethick was Garter King-at-Arms. Against this posi- 
tive evidence we lawyers should consider the negative 



14 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

was, as has been recently asserted, a glover, 
or that he ever sold wool or butcher's meat, 
is not proved by anything like satisfactory 
evidence ; — and, at any rate, according to the 
usages of society in those times, occasional 
dealings whereby the owner of land disposed 
of part of the produce of it by retail were 
reckoned quite consistent with the position of 
a squire. At this day, and in our own coun- 
try, gentlemen not unfrequently sell their own 
hay, corn, and cattle, and on the Continent 
the high nobility are well pleased to sell by 
the bottle the produce of their vineyards. 

It is said that the worthy Alderman could 
not write his own name. But the fac-simile 
of the document formerly relied upon to es- 
tablish this [an order, dated 29th Sept., 7 
Eliz., for John Wheeler to take upon himself 
the office of Bailiff, signed by nineteen alder- 
men and burgesses] appears to me to prove 



evidence, that, upon search, an entry of the first grant 
is not found, to be of no avail : and there could be no 
object in forging the first grant, as an original grant in 
1596 would have been equally beneficial both to father 
and son. 



GENTILITY OF HIS FATHER. 15 

the contrary, for the name of 3o\)n Sljaekspcr 
is subscribed in a strong, clear band, and 
tbe marh, supposed to be bis, evidently be- 
longs to tbe name of (EI]omas iDnr un in tbe 
line below. '•'•" You tell us, in your latest edi- 
tion, of tbe production of two new documents 
before tbe Sbakespeare Society, dated respect- 
ively 3rd and 9tb Dec, 11 Eliz., wbicb, it is 
said, if John Shakespeare could bave written, 
would bave been signed by bim, — wbereas 
tbey only bear bis mark. But in my own 
experience I bave known many instances of 
documents bearing a mark as tbe signature 
of persons wbo could write well, and tbis was 
probably mucb more common in illiterate 
ages, wben documents were generally authen- 
ticated by a seal. Even if it were demon- 
strated that John Shakespeare had not been 
" so well brought up that he could write his 
name," and that ^^ he had a mark to himself 
like an honest, plain-dealing man,'' — consid- 
ering that he was born not very long after 



* See that most elaborate and entertaining book, 
Knight's 'Life of Shakspere,' 1st ed., p. 16. 



16 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

tlie wars of the Koses, this deficiency would 
not weigh much in dis23roving his wealth or 
his gentility. Even supposing him to have 
been a genuine marksman, he was only on a 
par in this respect with many persons of 
higher rank, and with several of the most 
influential of his fellow townsmen. Of the 
nineteen Aldermen and burgesses who signed 
the order referred to, only seven subscribe 
their names with a pen, and the High Bailiff 
and Senior Alderman are among the marks- 
men. 

Whatever may have been the clownish 
condition of John ShakesjDeare, that the 
" Divine Williams '' (as the French call our 
great dramatist) received an excellent school 
education can hardly admit of question or 
doubt. We certainly know that he wrote a 
beautiful and business-like hand, which he 
probably acquired early. There was a free 
grammar school at Stratford, founded in the 
reign of Edward lY., and reformed by a char- 
ter of Edward YI. This school was supplied 
by a succession of competent masters to teach 
Greek and Latin : and here the sons of all 



CULTIYATION OF HIS MDsD. 17 

the members of the corporation were entitled 
to gratuitous instruction, and mixed with the 
sons of the neighbouring gentry. At such 
grammar schools, generally speaking, only a 
smattering of Greek was to be acquired, but 
the boys were thoroughly grounded in Latin 
grammar, and were rendered familiar with 
the most popular Koman classics. Shake- 
speare must have been at this school at least 
RYe years. His father's supposed pecuniary 
difficulties, which are said to have interrupted 
his education, did not occur till WiUiam had 
reached the age of 14 or 15, when, according 
to the plan of education which was then fol- 
lowed, the sons of tradesmen were put out as 
apprentices or clerks, and the sons of the 
more wealthy went to the university. None 
of his school compositions are preserved, and 
we have no authentic account of his progress ; 
but we know that at these schools boys of 
industry and genius have become well versed 
in classical learning. Samuel Johnson said 
that he acquired little at Oxford beyond what 
he had brought away with him from Lichfield 
Grammar School, where he had been taught, 



18 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

like Shakespeare^ as the son of a burgess ; 
and many from such schools, without further 
regular tuition, have distinguished themselves 
in literature. • 

It is said that " the boy is the father of 
the man ; " and knowing the man, we may 
form a notion of the tastes and habits of the 
boy. Grown to be a man, Shakespeare cer- 
tainly was most industrious, and showed an 
insatiable thirst for knowledge. We may 
therefore fairly infer, that from early infancy 
he instinctively availed himself of every op- 
portunity of mental culture, — 

"What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, 

To him the mighty mother did imveil 
Her awM face : — the dauntless child 
Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled." 

The grand difficulty is to discover, or to 
conjecture with reasonable probabihty, how 
Shakespeare was employed from about 1579, 
when he most likely left school, till about 
1586, when he is supposed to have gone to 
London. That during this interval he was 
merely an operative^ earning his bread by 



CULTIVATION OF HIS MIND. 19 

manual labour, in stitcMng gloves, sorting 
wool, or killing calves, no sensible man can 
possibly imagine. At twenty-three years of 
age, altbongb be bad not become regularly 
learned as if be bad taken tbe degree of 
M. A. at Oxford or Cambridge, after disput- 
ing in tbe scbools de omni scihili et quolihet 
enfe, — tbere can be no doubt that, like our 
Scottish Burns, his mind must have been 
richly cultivated, and that he had laid up a 
vast stock of valuable knowledge and of poet- 
ical imagery, gained from books, from social 
intercourse, and from the survey of nature. 
Whoever believes that when Shakespeare was 
first admitted to play a part in the Black- 
friars Theatre his mind was as unfurnished 
as that of the stolid ' Clown ' in the ' Win- 
ter's Tale,' who called forth a wish from his 
own father that " there were no age between 
ten and three and twenty,'' will readily give 
credit to all the most extravagant and ap- 
palling marvels of mesmerism, clairvoyance, 
table-turning, and spirit-rapping. 

Of Shakespeare's actual occupations dur- 
ing these important years, when his character 



20 shakespeaee's legal acqijieements. 

was formed, there is not a scintilla of contem- 
porary proof; and the vague traditionary evi- 
dence which has been resorted to was picked 
up many years after his death, when the 
object was to startle the world with things 
strange and supernatural respecting him. — 
That his time was engrossed during this in- 
terval by labouring as a mechanic, is a suppo- 
sition which I at once dismiss as absurd. 

Aubrey asserts that from leaving school 
till he left Warwickshire Shakespeare was a 
schoolmaster. If this could be believed, it 
would sufficiently accord with the phenomena 
of Shakespeare's subsequent career, except the 
familiar, profound, and accurate knowledge he 
displayed of juridical principles and practice. 
Being a schoolmaster in the country for some 
years (as Samuel Johnson certainly was), his 
mental cultivation would have certainly ad- 
vanced, and so he might have been prepared 
for the arena in which he was to aj)pear on 
his arrival in the metropolis. 

Unfortunately, however, the pedagogical 
theory is not only quite unsupported by evi- 
dence, but it is not consistent with established 



OCCUPATIONS AFTER LEAVINQ SCHOOL. 21 

facts. From tlie registration of the baptism 
of Shakespeare's cMldren^ and other well 
authenticated circumstances, we know that 
he continued to dwell in Stratford, or the im- 
mediate neighbourhood, till he became a citi- 
zen of London : there was no other school in 
Stratford except the endowed grammar school, 
where he had been a pupil; of this he certain- 
ly never was master, for the unbroken succes- 
sion of masters from the reign of Edward YI. 
tiU the reign of James I. is on record ; none 
of the mob who stand out for Shakespeare be- 
ing quite illiterate wiU allow that he was 
qualified to be usher ; and there is no trace 
of there having been any usher employed in 
this school. 

It may likewise be observed that if Shake- 
speare really had been a schoolmaster, he prob- 
ably would have had some regard for the 
"order" to which he belonged. In all his 
dramas we have three schoolmasters only, and 
he makes them all exceedingly ridiculous. 
First we have Holofernes in ^ Love's Labour 's 
Lost,' who is brought on the stage to be laugh- 
ed at for his pedantry and his bad verses; then 



22 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 

comes tiie Welsliman, Sir Hugh Evans, in the 
^ Merry Wives of Windsor/ who, although in 
holy orders, has not yet learned to speak the 
English language ; and last of all, Pinch, in 
the ' Comedy of Errors," who unites the bad 
qualities of a pedagogue and a conjuror. 

By the process of exhaustion, I now 
arrive at the only other occupation in which 
it is well possible to imagine that Shakespeare 
could be engaged during the period we are 
considering — that of an attorney's clerk — first 
suggested by Chalmers, and since counte- 
nanced by Malone, yourself and others, whose 
opinions are entitled to high respect, but im- 
pugned by nearly an equal number of biogra- 
phers and critics of almost equal authority, 
— without any one, on either side, having as 
yet discussed the question very elaborately. 

It must be admitted that there is no es- 
tablished fact with which this supposition is 
not consistent. At Stratford there was, by 
royal charter, a court of record, with jurisdic- 
tion over all personal actions to the amount 
of 30Lj equal, at the latter end of the reign 
of Elizabeth, to more than 100?, in the reign 



WAS HE AN ATTOENEy's CLEEK ? 23 

of Yictoria. This court, tlie records of wliich 
are extant, was regulated by tlie course of 
practice and pleading wliicH prevailed in the 
superior courts of law at Westminster, and 
employed the same barbarous dialect, com- 
posed of Latin, English, and Norman-French. 
It sat every fortnight, and there were belong- 
ing to it, besides the Town-clerk, six attorneys, 
some of whom must have practised in the 
Queen's Bench and in Chancery, and have 
had extensive business in conveyancing. An 
attorney, steward of the Earl of Warwick, 
lord of the manor of Stratford, twice a year 
held a court-leet and view of frankpledge 
there, to which a jury was summoned, and at 
which constables were appointed and various 
presentments were made. 

If Shakespeare had been a clerk to one of 
these attorneys, all that followed while he re- 
mained at Stratford, and the knowledge and 
acquirements which he displayed when he 
came to London, would not only have been 
within the bounds of possibility, but would 
seem almost effect from cause — in a natural 
and probable sequence. 



24 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

From the moderate pay allowed him by 
his master he would have been able decently 
to maintain his wife and children ; vacant 
hours would have been left to him for the in- 
dulgence of his literary propensity ; and this 
temporary attention to law might have quick- 
ened his fancy, — although a systematic, life- 
long devotion to it, I fear, may have a very 
different tendency. Burke eloquently des- 
cants upon the improvement of the mental 
faculties by juridical studies ; and Warbur- 
ton, Chatterton, Pitt the younger, Canning, 
Disraeli, and Lord Macaulay are a few out of 
many instances which might be cited of men 
of brilliant intellectual career who had early 
become familiar with the elements of jurispru- 
dence. 

Here would be the solution of Shake- 
speare's legalism which has so perplexed his 
biographers and commentators, and which 
Aubrey's tradition leaves wholly unexplained. 
We should only have to recollect the maxim 
that " the vessel long retains the flavour with 
which it has been once imbued." Great as is 
the knowledge of law which Shakespeare's 



25 

writings display, and familiar as lie appeals 
to have been with all its forms and proceed- 
ings, the whole of this would easily be account- 
ed for if for some years he had occupied a desk 
in the office of a country attorney in good 
business, — attending sessions and assizes, — 
keeping leets and law days, — and perhaps be- 
ing sent up to the metropoHs in term time to 
conduct suits before the Lord Chancellor or 
the superior courts of common law at West- 
minster, according to the ancient practice of 
country attorneys, who would not employ a 
London a2:ent to divide their fees.'^ 



* If Shakespeare really was articled to a Stratford 
attorney, in all probability during the five years of his 
clerkship he visited London several times on his mas- 
ter's business, and he may then have been introduced 
to the green room at Blackfriars by one of his country- 
men connected with that theatre. 

Even so late as Queen Anne's reign there seems to 
have been a prodigious influx of all ranks from the 
provinces into the metropolis in term time. During 
the preceding century Parliament sometimes did not 
meet at all for a considerable number of years ; and 
being summoned rarely and capriciously, the '' London 
season" seems to have been regulated, not by the 
session of Parliament, but by the law terms, — 

" and prints before Term ends."— Po^^. 

2 



26 Shakespeare's legal acqijieements. 

On tlie supposition of Shakespeare having 
been an attorney's clerk at Stratford we 
may likewise see how^ when very young, he 
contracted his taste for theatricals, even if he 
had never left that locality till the unlucky 



While term lasted, Westminster Hall was crowded all 
the morning, not only by lawyers, but by idlers and 
politicians, in quest of news. Term having ended, 
there seems to have been a general dispersion. Even 
the Judges spent their vacations in the country, having 
when in town resided in their chambers in the Temple 
or Inns of Court. The Chiefs were obliged to remain 
in town a day or two after term for Nisi Prius sittings ; 
but the Puisnes were entirely liberated when proclama- 
tion was made at the rising of the court on the last day 
of term, in the form still preserved, that " all manner 
of persons may take their ease, and give their attend- 
ance here again on the first day of the ensuing term." 
An old lady very lately deceased, a daughter of Mr. 
Justice Blackstone, who was a puisne judge of the 
Common Pleas and lived near Abingdon, used to relate 
that the day after term ended, the family coach, with 
four black long-tailed horses, used regularly to come 
at an early hour to Serjeants' Inn to conduct them to 
their country house; and there the Judge and his 
family remained till they travelled to London in the 
same style on the session-day of the following term. 
When a student of law, I had the honour of being pre- 
sented to the oldest of the judges, Mr. Justice Grose, 
famous for his beautiful seat in the Isle of Wight, 
where he leisurely spent a considerable part of the 



STEOLLmG PLATERS AT STKATFOED. 27 

affair of Sir Thomas Lucy's deer. It appears 
from the records of the Corporation of Strat- 
ford, that nearly every year the town was 
visited by strolling companies of players, call- 
ing themselves "the Earl of Derby's ser- 
vants," "the Earl of Leicester's servants/' 
and " Her Majesty's servants." These com- 
panies are most graphically represented to us 
by the strolling players in ^ Hamlet ' and in 
the ' Taming of the Shrew.' The custom at 
Stratford was for the players on their arrival 
to wait upon the Bailiff and Aldermen to 
obtain a licence to perform in the town. The 
Guildhall was generally allotted to them, and 
was fitted up as a theatre according to the 
simple and rude notions of the age. We may 
easily conceive that Will Shakespeare, son of 
the chief magistrate who granted the Hcence, 
now a bustling attorney's clerk, would actu- 
ally assist in these proceedings when his 
master's oflSce was closed for the day ; and 



year, mo7'e majorum. To his question to me, " Where 
do you live?" I answered, " I have chambers in Lin- 
coln's Inn, my Lord." "Ah!" replied he, "but I 
mean — when term is overy 



28 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

that he might thus readily "become intimate 
with the manager and the performers, some 
of whom were said to be his fellow-townsmen. 
He might well have officiated as prompter, the 
duty said to have been first assigned to him 
in the theatre at the Blackfriars. The travel- 
ling associations of actors at that period con- 
sisted generally of not more than from ^Ye to 
ten members ; and when a play to be performed 
in the Gruildhall at Stratford contained more 
characters than individuals in the hst of 
strollers, it would be no great stretch of 
imagination to suppose that, instead of muti- 
lating the piece by suppression, or awkwardly 
assigning two parts to one performer, " pleas- 
ant Willy's " assistance was called in ; and 
our great dramatist may thus have commenced 
his career as an actor in his native town. 

To prove that he had been bred in an at- 
torney's office, there is one piece of direct 
evidence. This is an alleged libel upon him 
by a contemporary — published to the world 
in his lifetime — which, if it do actually refer 
to him, must be considered as the foundation 
of a very strong inference of the fact. 



HIS SUCCESS AS AN ACTOE. 29 

Leaving Stratford and joining tlie players 
in London in 1586 or 1587, there can be no 
doubt tbat bis success Tras very rapid ; for, 
as early as 1589, be bad actually got a sbare 
in tbe Blackfriars Tbeatre, and be was a 
partner in managing it witb bis townsman 
Tbomas Green and bis countryman Kicbard 
Burbadge. I do not imagine tbat wben be 
went up to London be carried a tragedy in 
bis pocket to be offered for tbe stage as 
Samuel Jobnson did ' Ikene/ Tbe more 
probable conjecture is, tbat be began as an 
actor on tbe London boards, and being em- 
ployed, from tbe cleverness be displayed, to 
correct, alter, and improve dramas written by 
otbers, be went on to produce dramas of bis 
own, wbicb were applauded more loudly tban 
any tbat bad before appeared upon tbe Eng- 
lish stage. 

'•' Envy does merit as its shade pursue ; " 

and rivals wbom be surpassed not only en^ded 
Shakespeare, but grossly libelled him. Of 
this we have an example in ' An Epistle to 
tbe Gentlemen Students of the Two Univer- 



30 shakespeake's legal acquikements. 

sities, by Thomas Nash/ prefixed to the first 
edition of Kohert Greene's 'Menaphon' 
(which was subsequently called ' Greene's 
Arcadia/) — according to the title-page, pub- 
lished in 1589. The alleged Hbel on Shake- 
speare is in the words following, viz. : — 

" I will turn back to my first text of studies of de- 
light, and talk a little in friendship with a few of our 
trivial translators. It is a common practice now-a- 
days, amongst a sort of shifting companions that run 
through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade 
of JSFoverint, whereto they were born, and busy them- 
selves with the endeavours of art, that could scarcely 
Latinize their neck-verse if they should have need ; yai 
English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good 
sentences, as Uood is a Icggar^ and so forth ; and if you 
intreat him fair, in a frosty morning, he will afford you 
whole Eamlets ; I should say handfuls of tragical 
speeches. But grief! Tempiis edax rerum — what is 
that will last always ? The sea exhaled by drops will 
in continuance be dry ; and Seneca, let blood, line by 
line, and page by page, at length must needs die to our 
stage." 

Now, if the innuendo which would have 
been introduced into the declaration in an ac- 
tion, '^Shakespeare v. Nash," for this libel 



ALLEGED LIBEL ON SHAEIESPEAEE. 31 

( — ^^ thereby then and there meaning the said 
William Shakespeare" — ) he made out, there 
can he no doubt as to the remaining innuendo 
"thereby then and there meaning that the 
said William Shakespeare had been an at- 
torney's clerk, or bred an attorney/' 

In EHzabeth's reign deeds were in the 
Latin tongue ; and all deeds poll, and many 
other law papers, began with the words 
" NOYEKINT universi per presentes "—" Be 
it known to all men by these presents that, 
&c." The very bond which was given in 
1582, prior to the grant of a licence for 
Shakespeare's marriage with Ann Hathaway, 
and which Shakespeare most probably himself 
drew, commences " JSTOVEKINT universi per 
prese7ites." The business of an attorney 
seems to have been then known as " the trade 
of ITOYEKINT/' Ergo, "these shiftmg 
companions " are charged with having aban- 
doned the legal profession, to which they were 
bred ; and, although most imperfectly edu- 
cated, with trying to manufacture tragical 
speeches from an English translation of Seneca. 

For completing Nash's testimony (valeat 



32 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

quantum) to tlie fact that Shakespeare liad 
been bred to tlie law^ nothing remains but to 
consider whether Shakespeare is here aimed 
at ? Now, independently of the expressions 
"whole Hamlets" and '^handfuls of tragical 
speeches/' which, had Shakespeare's ^Ham- 
let ' certainly been written and acted before 
the publication of Nash's letter, could leave 
no doubt as to the author's intention, there is 
strong reason to believe that the intended 
victim was the young man from "Warwick- 
shire, who had suddenly made such a sensa- 
tion and such a revolution in the theatrical 
world. Nash and Bobert Greene, the author 
of ' Menaphon ' or ^ Arcadia,' the work to 
which Nash's Epistle was appended, were 
very intimate. In this very epistle Nash 
calls Greene " sweet friend." It is well 
known that this Kobert Greene (who, it must 
always be remembered, was a totally different 
person from Thomas Green, the actor and 
j)art proprietor of the Blackfriars Theatre) 
was one of the chief sufferers from Shakespeare 
^being engaged by the Lord Chamberlain's 
players to alter stock pieces for the Black- 



ENMITY OF ROBERT GREENE. 33 

friars Theatre, to touch up and improve new 
pieces proposed to the managers, and to sup- 
ply original pieces of his own. Kobert Greene 
had been himself employed in this depart- 
ment, and he felt that his occupation was 
gone. Therefore, by publishing Nash's Epis- 
tle in 1589, when Shakespeare, and no one 
else, had, by the display of superior genius, 
been the ruin of Greene, the two must have 
combined to denounce Shakespeare as having 
abandoned "the trade of Noverinf in order 
to " busy himself with the endeavours of art," 
and to furnish tragical speeches from the 
translation of Seneca. 

In 1592 Greene followed up the attack of 
1589 in a tract called ^ The Groatsworth of 
Wit.' Here he does not renew the taunt of 
abandoning '' the trade of Noverint," which 
with Nash he had before made, but he point- 
edly upbraids Shakespeare by the nickname 
of Slialze- scene, as " an upstart crow beautified 
with our feathers," having just before spoken 
of himself as " the man to whom actors had 
been previously beholding." He goes on 

farther to allude to Shakespeare as one who 
2* 



34 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

" supposes lie is as well able to bombast out a 
blank verse as the best of bis predecessors/' 
as "an absolute Johannes Factotum," and 
" in his own conceit the only Shake-scene 
in a country." In 1592 Kobert Greene frank- 
ly complains that Shake-scene had unde- 
servedly met with such success as to be able 
to drive him (Greene) and others similarly 
circumstanced from an employment by which 
they had mainly subsisted.* This evidence, 
therefore, seems amply sufficient to prove 
that there was a conspiracy between the two 
libellers, ISTash and Kobert Greene, and that 
Shakespeare was the object of it. 

But I do not hesitate to believe that !N"ash, 
in 1589, directly alludes to ^ Hamlet ' as a 
play of Shakespeare, and wishes to turn it 
into ridicule. I am aware that an attempt 
has been made to show that there had been 
an edition of ^Menaphon' before 1589; but 
no copy of any prior edition of it, with Nash's 



* You no doubt recollect that Robert Greene ac- 
tually died of starvation before his 'Groatsworth of 
Wit,' in which he so bitterly assailed Shalcespeare as 
" Shake-scene " was published. 



ELABOKATION OF HIS PLAYS. 35 

Epistle appended to it, has been produced. 
I am also aware tliat ^ Hamlet/ in the perfect 
state in which we now behold it, was not 
finished till several years after ; but I make 
no doubt that before the publication of Nash's 
Epistle Shakespeare's first sketch of his play 
of ^ Hamlet/ taken probably from some older 
play with the same title, had been produced 
upon the Blackfriars stage and received with 
applause which generated envy. 

From the saying of the players, recorded 
by Ben Jonson', that Shakespeare never 
blotted a line, an erroneous notion has pre- 
vailed that he carelessly sketched ofi^ his 
dramas, and never retouched them or cared 
about them after. So far from this (contrary 
to modern practice), he often materially al- 
tered, enlarged, and improved them subse- 
quently to their having been brought out 
upon the stage and having had a successful 
run. There is clear proof that he wrote and 
rewrote ' Hamlet,' ^ Eomeo and Juliet,' ^ The 
Merry Wives of Windsor/ and several other 
of his dramas, with unwearied pains, making 



36 Shakespeare's legal acqtjieements. 

tliem at last sometimes nearly twice as long 
as they were when originally represented. 

With respect to these dates it is remarka- 
ble that an English translation of Seneca, 
from which Shakespeare was supposed to have 
jDlagiarised so freely, had been published sev- 
eral years before Nash's Epistle ; — and in the 
scene with the plaj^ers on their arrival at 
Elsinore (if this scene appeared in the first 
sketch of the tragedy, as it probably did, from 
being so essential to the plot), Shakespeare's 
acquaintance with this author was proclaimed 
by the panegyric of Polonius upon the new 
company, for whom " Seneca could not be 
too heavy nor Plautus too light.'' 

Therefore, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, in 
support of your opinion that Shakespeare had 
been bred to the profession of the law in an 
attorney's office, I think you will be justified 
in saying that the fact was asserted publicly 
in Shakespeare's lifetime by two contempo- 
raries of Shakespeare, who were engaged in 
the same pursuits with himself, who must 
have known him well, and who were probably 
acquainted with the whole of his career. 



INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 37 

I must likewise admit that this assertion 
is strongly corroborated by internal evidence 
to be found in Shakespeare's writings. I 
have once more perused the whole of his 
dramas, that I might more satisfactorily an- 
swer your question, and render you some as- 
sistance in finally coming to a right con- 
clusion. 

In ^ The Two Gentlemen of Verona/ 
'Twelfth Night/ 'Juhus Ceesar/ ' Cymbe- 
line/ ' Timon of Athens/ ' The Tempest/ 
' King Kichard 11./ ' King Henry Y./ ' King 
Heniy YI. Part I./ ' King Henry YI. Part 
III./ 'King Kichard III./ 'King Henry 
YIII/ ' Pericles of Tyre/ and ' Titus An- 
dronicus' — fourteen of the thirty-seven dramas 
generally attributed to Shakespeare — I find 
nothing that fairly bears upon this contro- 
versy. Of course I had only to look for ex- 
pressions and allusions that must be supposed 
to come from one who has been a professional 
lawyer. Amidst the seducing beauties of 
sentiment and language through which I had 
to pick my way, I may have overlooked vari- 
ous specimens of the article of which I was in 



38 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

quest, which, would have been accidentally 
valuable, although intrinsically worthless. 

However, from each of the remaining 
twenty-three dramas I have made exti-acts 
which I think are well worth your attention. 
These extracts I will now lay before you, with 
a few explanatory remarks, — which perhaps 
you will think demonstrably prove that your 
correspondent is a laivyer, and nothing but 

A LAWYEE. 

I thought of grouping the extracts as they 
may be supposed to apply to particular heads 
of law or particular legal phrases, but I found 
this impracticable ; and I am driven to ex- 
amine seriatim the dramas from which the 
extracts are made. I take them in the order 
in which they are arranged, as " Comedies,'' 
" Histories," and " Tragedies," in the foho of 
1623, the earliest authority for the whole col- 
lection. 



THE MEREY WIVES OP WINDSOR. 39 



\u P^rrg Wim^ nf MuiteDr. 



In Act II. Sc. 2, where Ford; under the 
name of Master Brook, tries to induce Falstaff 
to assist him in his intrigue with Mrs. Ford, 
and states that from all the trouble and money 
he had bestowed ujDon her he had had no bene- 
ficial return, we have the following question 
and answer : — 

Fal. Of what quality was your love, then 1 

Ford. Like a fair house built upon another man's 

ground; so that I have lost my edifice ly mistaJcing the 

place ichere I erected it. 

Now this shows in Shakespeare a knowl- 
edge of the law of real property, not generally 
possessed. The unlearned would suppose that 
if, by mistake, a man builds a fine house on 
the land of another, when he discovers his 
error he wiU be permitted to remove all the 
materials of the structure, and particularly 
the marble piUars and carved chimney-pieces 
with which he has adorned it ; but Shake- 



40 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

speare knew better. He was aware that, being 
fixed to the freeholdj tlie absolute property in 
tbem belonged to the owner of the soil, and 
he recollected the maxim, Cujus est solum, 
ejus est usque ad coelum. 



Afterwards, in writing the second scene of 
Act IV., Shakespeare's head was so full of the 
recondite terms of the law, that he makes a 
lady thus pour them out, in a confidential 
tete-a-tete conversation with another lady, 
while discoursing of the revenge they two 
should take upon an old gentleman for having 
made an unsuccessful attempt upon their vir- 
tue : — 

Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hung 
o'er the altar : it hath done meritorious service. 

Mrs. Ford. What think you ? May we, with the 
warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good con- 
(science, pursue him with any farther revenge ? 

Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, soared 
out of him : if the devil have him not in fee simple, 
loith fine and recovery^ he will never, I think, in the 
way of waste, attempt us again. 



MEASURE FOK MEASURE. 41 

This Merry Wife of Windsor is supposed 
to know that the highest estate which the 
devil could hold in any of his victims was a 
fee simple, strengthened hj fine and recovery. 
Shakespeare himself may probably have be- 
come aware of the law u]3on the subject, when 
it was explained to him in answer to questions 
he put to the attorney, his master, while en- 
grossing the deeds to be executed upon the 
purchase of a Warwickshire estate with a 
doubtful title. 



Pasur^ for |%iisuit. 



In Act I. Sc. 2, the old lady who had kept 
a lodging-liouse of a disreputable character in 
the suburbs of Vienna being thrown into de- 
spair by the proclamation that all such houses 
in the suburbs must be plucked down, the 
Clown thus comforts her :— r 

Clo. Come ; fear not you : good counsellors lack no 
clients. 



42 Shakespeare's LEaAL acquirements. 

This comparison is not very flattering to 
tlie bar, but it seems to show a familiarity 
with both the professions alluded to. 



In Act II. Sc. 1; the ignorance of special 
pleading and of the nature of actions at law 
betrayed by Elbow, the constable, when slan- 
dered, is ridiculed by the Lord Escalus in a 
manner which proves that the composer of the 
dialogue was himself fully initiated in these 
mysteries : — 

Elbow. Oh, thou caitiff! Oh, thou varlet! Oh, 
thou wicked Hannibal ! I respected with her, before I 
was married to her ? — If ever I was respected with her, 
or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor 
duke's officer. — Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or 
I'll have mine action of 'battery on thee. 

Escal. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might 
have your action of slander too. 



The manner in which, in Act iii. Sc. 2,- 
Escalus designates and talks of Angelo, with 
whom he was joined in commission as Judge, 



MEASTTEE FOR MEASURE. 43 

is SO like tlie manner in which one English 
Judge designates and talks of another, that it 
countenances the supposition that Shake- 
speare may often, as an attorney's clerk, have 
been in the presence of English Judges : — 

Escal. Provost, my Irotlier Angela will not be al- 
tered ; Claudio must die to-morrow. * * * If onij 
'brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with 
him. * * * I have laboured for the poor gentle- 
man to the extremest shore of my modesty ; but my 
hrotlier justice have I found so severe, that he hath 
forced me to tell him, he is indeed — Justice.* 



Even where Shakespeare is most solemn 
and sublime, his sentiments and language 
seem sometimes to take a tinge from his early 
pursuits, — as may be observed from a beauti- 



* I am glad to observe that our " brethren " in 
America adhere to the old phraseology of TTestminster 
Hall. A Chief Justice in New England thus concludes 
a very sound judgment: — "My brother Blamierhasset, 
who was present at the argument, but is prevented by 
business at chambers from being here to-day, authori- 
ses me to say that he has read this judgment, and that 
he entirely concurs in it." 



4:4: 

ful passage in this play, — ^wbich, lest I should 
be tliouglit guilty of irreverence, I do not ven- 
ture to comment upon : — 

Angela . Your brother is a forfeit to the law. 

Iscibella. Alas ! alas ! 

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; 

And He that might the vantage best have took 

Found out the remedy: How would you be 

If He, which is the top of judgment, should 

But judge you as you are? 0, think on that ; 

And mercy then will breathe within your lips, 

Like man new made. 

(Act II. So. 2.) 



®to ({mxt&i xrf ^rr^rs. 



The following is part of the dialogue be- 
tween Antix)holus of Syracuse and his man 
Dromio, in Act ii. Sc. 2 : 

Dro. S. There's no time for a man to recover his 

hair, that grows bald by nature. 

Ant. S. May he not do it hy fine and oxcoveryf 
Dro. S. Yes, to pay fifine for a periwig, and recover 

the lost hair of another man. 



THE COMEDY OF EREORS. 45 

These jests cannot be supposed to arise 
from anything in the laws or customs of Syra- 
cuse ; but they show the author to be very 
familiar with some of the most abstruse pro- 
ceedings in English jurisprudence. 



In Act IV. Sc. 2, Adriana asks Dromio 
of Syracuse, "Where is thy master, Dromio ? 
Is he well ? " and Dromio rephes — 

No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell : 
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him, 
One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel j 
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough ; 
A wolf; nay worse, a fellow all in buff; 
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that counter- 
mands 
The passages and alleys, creeks, and narrow lands : 
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot 

well; 
One that lefore the judgment carries poor souls to hell. 

Adr. Why, man, what is the matter ? 

Dro. S. I do not know the matter ; he is ''rested on 
the case. 

Adr. What, is he arrested ? tell me at whose suit. 



46 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. 

Dro. 8. I know not at whose suit he is arrested, 
well, 
But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I 
tell. * * * 
Adr. * * * This I wonder at : 
That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. 
Tell me, was he arrested on a Ijond f 

Dro. 8. Not on a lonc\ but on a stronger thing : 
A chain, a cJucin ! 

Here we have a most circumstantial and 
graphic account of an English arrest on mesne 
process ["before judgment"], in an action 
on the case J for the price of a gold chain, by a 
'sheriff's officer, or bum-bailiff^ in his buff cos- 
tume, and carrying his prisoner to a sponging- 
house — a spectacle which might often have 
been seen by an attorney's clerk. A fellow- 
student of mine (since an eminent Judge), 
being sent to an attorney's office, as part of 
his legal education, used to accompany the 
sheriff's officer when making captions on 
mesne process, that he might enjoy the whole 
feast of a law- suit from the egg to the apples 
— and he was fond of giving a similar account 
of this proceeding, — which was then con- 
stantly occurring, but which, like " Trial by 
Battle/' may now be considered obsolete. 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 47 



31^ |M lik |i 



In Act I. Sc. 2, Shakespeare makes the 
lively KosaKnd, who, although well versed in 
poesy and books of chivalry, had prohably 
never seen a bond or a law-paper of any sort 
in her life, quite familiar with the commence- 
ment of all deeds poll, which in Latin was, 
Noverint universi per presentes, in English, 
"Be it known to all men by these pres- 
ents : "— 

Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three 
sons, — 

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. 

Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent 
growth and presence j — 

Bos. With bills on their necks, — ^'- Be it Icnoicn 
unto all men ly these presents^'' — 

This is the technical phraseology referred 
to by Thomas Nash in his ^Ej)istle to the 
Gentlemen Students of the two Universities,' 
in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have 



48 shakespeahe's legal acquirements. 

denounced tlie author of ^ Hamlet ' as one of 
those who had " left the trade of Noverinf, 
whereto they were born, for handfuls of tragi- 
cal S23eeches'' — that is, an attorney's clerk 
become a poet, and penning a stanza when 
he should engross. 

^ As You Like It ' was not brought out 
until shortly before the year 1600, so that 
Nash's Noverint could not have been sug- 
gested by it. Possibly Shakspeare now intro- 
duced the " Be it known unto all men,'' &o., 
in order to show his contempt for Nash's 
sarcasm. 



In Act. II. Sc. 1, there are illustrations 
which would present themselves rather to the 
mind of one initiated in legal proceedings, 
than of one who had been brought up as an 
apprentice to a glover, or an assistant to a 
butcher or awoolstapler : — for instance, when 
it is said of the poor wounded deer, weeping 
in the stream — 



thou mak'st a testament 



As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more 
To that which hath too much." 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 49 

And again wliere the careless herd, jumping 
by him without greeting him, are compared 
to '^ fat and greasy citizens,'^ who look 

" Upon that poor and broken larikrupt there," — 

without pitying his sufferings or attempting 
to relieve his necessities. 



It may perhaps be said that such language 
might be used by any man of observation. 
But in Act III. Sc. 1, a deep technical knowl- 
edge of law is displayed, howsoever it may 
have been acquired. 

The usurping Duke, Frederick, wishing 
all the real property of Oliver to be seized, 
awards a writ of extent against him, in the 
language which would be used by the Lord 
Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer — 

Dulce Fred. Make an extent upon Ms liome and lands — 

an extendi facias applying to house and 
lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods 
and chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum 
to the person. 



50 shakespeaee's legal acqtjikements. 

So in ^ King Henry YIII/ we have an 
equally accurate statement of the omnivorous 
nature of a writ of Pe^munire. The Duke 
of Suffolk, addressing Cardinal Wolsey, 

says,— 

" Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is, 
Because all those things you have done of late 
By your power legatine within this kingdom 
Fall into the compass of a prwrnunirCj 
That therefore such a writ be sued against you, 
Ta forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, 
Chattels, and whatsoever, and to de 
Out of the Eing''s x>rotection»'' 



In the next scene of ^ As You Like It/ 
Shakspeare shows that he was well acquainted 
with lawyers themselves and the vicissitudes 
of their lives. Eosalind having told "who 
Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, 
who Time gallops withal," "being asked, 
" Who Time stands still withal ? " answers — 

With la^vyers in the vacation ; for they sleep "between 
term and term, and then they perceive not how Time 
moves. 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 51 

Our great poet had probably observed that 
some lawyers have little enjoyment of the 
vacation after a very few weeks, and that they 
again long for the excitement of arguing de- 
murrers and pocketing fees. 



In the first scene of Act iv. Shakspeare 
gives us the true legal meaning of the word 
"attorney/' viz. representative or deputy, 
[Celui qui vient a tour d'autrui ; Qui alterius 
vices subit ; Legatus ; Yakeel.] 

Bos. Well, in her person I say — I will not have 
you. 

Orl. Then, in my own person, I die. 

Ros. No, faith, die ly attorney. The poor world is 
almost six thousand years old, and in all this time 
there was not any man died in his own person, mdelicet^ 
in a love cause.* 



* So in ' Eichard III.,' Act iv. Sc. 4, the crook- 
backed tyrant, after murdering the infant sons of 
Edward IV., audaciously proposes to their mother to 
marry the Princess Elizabeth, their sister, and wishing 
the queen to intercede with her in his favour, says, — 

Be the attorney of my love to her. 



52 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

I am sorry to say that in our time tlie 
once most respectable word " attorney " seems 
to have gained a new meaning, viz. " a dis- 
reputable legal practitioner ; " so that attor- 
neys at law consider themselves treated dis- 
courteously when they are called " Attorneys." 
They now all wish to be called Solicitors, 
when doing the proper business of attorneys 
in the Courts of Common Law. Most sin- 
cerely honouring this branch of our profession, 
if it would please them, I am ready to sup- 
port a bill " to prohibit the use of the word 
Attorney, and to enact that on all occasions 
the word Solicitor shall be used instead 
thereof." 

Near the end of the same scene Shake- 
speare again evinces his love for legal phrase- 
ology and imagery by converting Time into 
an aged Judge of Assize, sitting on the Crown 
side : — 



Again in the same play (Act v. Sc. 3) Lord Stanley, 
meeting Richmond on the field at Bosworth, says — 

I by attorney bless thee from thy mother. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHINQ. 53 

Eos. TVell, Time is the old Justice that examines 
all such offenders, and let Time try. 

As in ^ Troilus and Cressida ' (Act iv. Sc. 
5) Shakespeare makes Time an Arhitrator : — 

"And that old common Aebitratoe, Time, 
Will one day end it." 



M\ %h %hmi '§n\\\\\\^. 



It has been generally supposed that Shake- 
speare; in the characters of Dogberry and 
Verges, only meant to satirize the ignorance 
and folly of parish constables — a race with 
which we of this generation were familiar till 
the estabhshment of the metropolitan and 
rural police ; but I cannot helj) suspecting 
that he slily aimed at higher legal function- 
aries — Chairmen at Quarter-sessions, and even 
Judges of assize, — with whose performances 
he may probably have become acquainted at 
Warwick and elsewhere. 

There never has been a law or custom in 



64: Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

England to ^^ give a charge" to constables; 
but from time immemorial there has been " a 
charge to grand juries" by tbe presiding 
judge. This charge, we are bound to believe, 
is now-a-days always characterised by sim- 
plicity, pertinence, and correctness, although, 
according to existing etiquette, in order that 
it may not be too severely criticised, the bar- 
risters are not admitted into the Crown Court 
till the charge is over. But when Justice 
Shallow gave the charge to the grand jury at 
sessions in the county of Gloucester, we may 
conjecture that some of his doctrines and di- 
rections were not very wise ; and Judges of 
the superior courts in former times made 
themselves ridiculous by expatiating, in their 
charges to grand juries, on vexed questions 
of manners, religion, politics, and political 
economy. Dogberry uses the very words of 
the oath administered by the Judges' mar- 
shal to the grand jury at the present day : — 

Keep your fellows' counsels and your own. 

(Act III. So. 3.) 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHINa. 55 

If the different parts of Dogberry's charge 
are strictly examined^ it will be found that 
the author of it had a very respectable ac- 
quaintance with crown law. The problem 
was to save the constables from all trouble, 
danger, and responsibility, without any regard 
to the public safety : — 

Bogb. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by 
virtue of your office, to be no true man ; and for such 
kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, 
why, the more is for your honesty. 

2 Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we 
not lay hands on him ? 

Dogh. Truly, by your office you may j but, I think, 
they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peace- 
able way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him 
show himself what he is, and steal out of your company. 

Now there can be no doubt that Lord 
Coke himself could not more accurately have 
defined the power of a peace-officer. 

I cannot say as much for the law laid 
down by Dogberry and Verges in Act iv. 
Sc. 2, that it was ^^flat ^perjury" to call a 
prince's brother villain ; or ^'flat hurglary as 
ever was committed " to receive a thousand 



66 shakespeake's legal acquieements. 

ducats "for accusing a lady wrongfully/' 
But the dramatist seems himself to have 
been well acquainted with the terms and dis- 
tinctions of our criminal code, or. he could not 
have rendered the blunders of the parish of- 
ficers so absurd and laughable. 



3m'n m^m'^ 3^^t 



In Act I. Sc. 1, we have an extract from 
the Keport by Don Adriano de Armado of 
the infraction he had witnessed of the King's 
proclamation by Costard with Jaquenetta ; 
and it is drawn up in the true lawyerhke, 
tautological dialect^ — which is to be paid for 
at so much a folio : — 

Then for the place where ; where, I mean, I did en- 
counter that obscene and most preposterous event that 
draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured 
ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, and 
seest. * * * Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty 
pricks me on) have sent to thee to receive the meed of 



MIDSUMMEK NIGHt's DEEAJSI. 57 

punishment, by tliy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, 
a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation. 

The gifted Shakespeare might perhaps 
have been capable^ by intuition^ of thus imi- 
tating the conveyancer's jargon ; but no ordi- 
nary man could have hit it off so exactly, 
without having engrossed in an attorney's 
office. 



PiiteummiJr ^§x^\A!^ ^xmw. 



Egeus makes complaint to Theseus, in 
Act I. Sc. 1, against his daughter Hermia, 
because, while he wishes her to marry Deme- 
trius, she prefers Lysander ; and he seeks to 
enforce the law of Athens, that a daughter, 
who refuses to marry according to her father's 
directions, may be put to death by him : — 

And, my gracious duke. 
Be it so, she will not here, before your grace, 
Consent to marry with Demetrius. 
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, 
3* 



58 shakespeahe's legal acquieements. 

As she is mine, I may dispose of her, 
Which shall be either to this gentleman, 
Or to her death, according to our law 
Immediately promded in that case. 

Commenting on this last line, Steevens 
observes, " Shakespeare is grievously suspect- 
ed of having been placed, while a boy, in an 
attorney's office. The line before us has an 
undoubted smack of legal commonplace : Po- 
etry disclaims it." 

The precise formula — " In such case made 
and provided " — would not have stood in the 
verse. There is certainly no nearer approach 
in heroic measure to the technical language 
of an indictment ; and there seems no motive 
for the addition made to the preceding line, 
except to show a familiarity with legal phrase- 
ology, which Shakespeare, whether he ever 
were an attorney's clerk or not, is constantly 
fond of displaying. 



THE MEECHANT OF VENICE. 59 



In Act I. Sc. 3, and Act ii. Sc. 8, Anto- 
nio's bond to Sliylock is prepared and talked 
about according to all the forms observed in 
an English attorney's office. The distinction 
between a " single bill " and a " bond with a 
condition '' is clearly referred to ; and jounc- 
tual payment is expressed in the technical 
phrase — " Let good Antonio Tceep Ms day.'' 



It appears by Act iii. Sc. 3^ between Shy- 
lock, Salarino, Antonio, and a Jailer, that the 
action on the bond had been commenced, and 
Antonio had been arrested on mesne process. 
The trial was to come on before the Doge ; 
and the question was, whether Shylock was 
entitled to judgment specifically for his pound, 
of fiesh, or must be contented with pecuniary 
damages. 



60 SHAKESPEAEE S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS. 

Shylocb threatens tlie Jailer with an action 
.for " escape " for allowing Antonio to come 
for a short time beyond the walls of the 
prison :— 

I do wonder, 
Thou naughty Jailer, that thou art so fond 
To come abroad with him at his request. 

Antonio is made to confess that Shylock 
is entitled to the pound of flesh, according to 
the plain meaning of the bond and condition, 
and the rigid strictness of the common law of 

England : — 

Salarino. I am sure the Duke 

Will never grant this forfeiture to hold. . 

Anionio. The Duke cannot deny the course of law. 

All this has a strong odour of Westmin- 
ster Hall. 



The trial comes on in Act iv. Sc. 1, and it 
is duly conducted according to the strict forms 
of legal procedure. Portia, the Podesta or 
judge called in to act under the authority of 



THE MEKCHANT OF VENICE. 61 

the Doge, first inquires if there be any plea of 
non est factum. 

She asks Antonio, " Do you confess the 
bond ? '' and when he answers, " I do/' the 
judge proceeds to consider how the damages 
are to be assessed. The plaintiff claims the 
penalty of the bond, according to the words 
of the condition ; and Bassanio, who acts as 
counsel fbr the defendant, attempting on 
equitable grounds to have him excused by 
papng twice the sum of money lent, or " ten 
times o'er," judgment is given : — 

Portia. It must not be. There is no power in Venice 
Can alter a decree established. 
Twill be recorded for a precedent, 
And many an error by the same example 
Will rush into the state. * * * 

This bond is forfeit, 
And lawfully by this the Jew may claim 
A pound of flesh to be by him cut off 
Nearest the merchant's heart. 

However, oyer of the bond being demand- 
ed, the judge found that it gave " no jot of 
blood ; " and the result was that Shylock, to 
save his own life, was obliged to consent to 



62 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

make over all his goods to his daughter Jessi- 
ca and her Christian husband Lorenzo, and 
himself to submit to Christian baptism. 

Shakespeare concludes this scene with an 
ebullition which might be expected from an 
English lawyer, by making Gratiano ex- 
claim, — 

In cliristening thou shalt have tioo godfatliers: 
Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more, 
To bring thee to the gallows^ not the font — 

meaning a jury of twelve men, to find him 
guilty of the capital offence of an attempt to 
murder; — whereupon he must have been 
hanged. 



I may further observe that this play, in 
the last scene of the last act, contains another 
palpable allusion to English legal procedure. 
In the court of Queen's Bench, when a com- 
plaint is made against a person for a " con- 
tem;pt," the practice is that before sentence is 
finally pronounced, he is sent into the Crown 
Office, and being there " cliarged upon inter- 



THE TAMINa OF THE SHEEW. 63 

rogatories,^' he is made to swear that he will 
" answer all things faithfully/' Accordingly, 
in the moonlight scene in the garden at Bel- 
mont, after a partial explanation between 
Bassanio, Gratiano, Portia, and Nerissa, 
about their rings, some farther inquiry being- 
deemed necessary, Portia says, — 

Let ns go in, 
And charge hb tJiere U2wn inter'' gatories. 
And ice will aiuicer all things faWif idly . 

Gratiano assents, observing, — 

Let it be so : the first inter'gatory 
That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is. 
Whether till the next night she had rather stay, 
Or go to bed now, being two hours to day. 



Wi\t SfitmittK 4 M ^fom* 



In the " Induction " Shakespeare betrays 
an intimate knowledge of the matters which 
may be prosecuted as offences before the Court 
Leet, the lowest court of criminal judicature 



64: shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

in England. He puts this speecli into tlie 
moutli of a servant, who is trying to persuade 
Sly tliat he is a great lord, and that he had 
been in a dream for fifteen years, during 
which time he thought he was a frequenter 
of alehouses : — 

For though you lay here in this goodly chamber, 
Yet would you say, ye were beaten out of door, 
And rail upon the hostess of the house, 
And say you would present Tier at tlie leet, 
Because slie trouglit stone jugs, and no sealed quarts. 

NoW; in the reigns of Elizabeth and James 
I., there was a very wholesome law, that, for 
the protection of the public against "false 
measures," ale should be sold only in sealed 
vessels of the standard capacity; and the vio- 
lation of the law was to be presented at the 
"Court Leet," or "View of Frankpledge," 
held in every hundred, manor, or lordship, 
before the steward of the leet. 

Malone, in reference to this passage, cites 
the well-known treatise of ^ Kitchen on Courts/ 
and also copies a passage from a work with 
which I am not acquainted — ' Characterismi, 
or Lenton's Leasures/ 12mo. 1631 — which 



THE TAMING OF THE SHEEW. 65 

runs tlms : — " He [an informer] transforms 
himselfe into several shapes, to avoid suspicion 
o£ inneJiolders, and inwardly joyes at the sight 
of a blacke pot or jugge, knowing that their 
sale by sealed quarts spoyles his market/' 



In Act I. Sc. 2, the proposal of Tranio 
that the rival lovers of Bianca, while they 
eagerly in her presence should press their suit, 
yet, when she is absent, should converse freely 
as friends, is illustrated in a manner to induce 
a belief that the author of Tranio's speech had 
been accustomed to see the contending coun- 
sel, when the trial is over, or suspended, — on 
very familiar and friendly terms with each 
other : — 

Tra. Sir, I shall not be slack : in sign wliereof, 
Please ye, we may contrive this afternoon, 
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health ; 
And do as adversaries do in laic, 
Strive mightily^ hut eat and dririk as friends. 

This clearly alludes not to the parties 
litigating, who, if they were to eat and drink 



66 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 

together, would generally he disposed to poison 
each other, but to the counsel on opposite 
sides, with whom, notwithstanding the fiercest 
contests in court, when they meet in private 
immediately after, it is " All hail, fellow, and 
well met." 



In the first encounter of wits between 
Katherine and Petruchio, Shakespeare shows 
that he was acquainted with the law for reg- 
ulating "trials by battle" between cham- 
pions, one of which had been fought in Tothill 
Fields before the judges of the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth. 

Kath. What is your crest ? a coxcomb ? 
Pet. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen. 
Katli. No cock of mine : you crow too like a crmen, 

(Act II. Sc. 1.) 

This all lawyers know to be the word 
spoken by a champion who acknowledged that 
he was beaten, and declared that he would 
fight no more : — whereupon judgment was 
immediately given against the side which he 



67 

supported, and lie bore the infamous name of 
Craven for tlie rest of liis days. 

We have like evidence in ' Hamlet ' (Act 
IV. Sc. 4) of Shakespeare's acquaintance with 
the legal meaning of this word^ where the hero 
says — 

Now, whether it be 
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
Of thinking too precisely on th' event. 



%\V^ MtW \M ^iKls MtW. 



In this play we meet with proof that 
Shakespeare had an accurate knowledge of 
the law of England respecting the incidents 
of military tenure^ or tenure in chivalry, by 
which the greatest part of the land in this 
kingdom was held till the reign of Charles II. 
The incidents of that tenure here dwelt upon 
are '^, wardship of minors'' and "the right 
of the guardian to dispose of the minor in 
marriage at his pleasure." The scene lies in 



68 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

France, and, strictly speaking, tlie law of tliat 
country ouglit to prevail in settling such ques- 
tions : but Dr. Johnson, in his notes on ^ All's 
Well that Ends Well,' justly intiraates his 
opinion that it is of no great use to inquire 
whether the law upon these subjects was the 
same in France as in England, " for Shake- 
speare gives to all nations the manners of 
England." 

According to the plot on which this play 
is constructed, the French King laboured 
under a malady which his physicians had 
declared incurable; and Helena, the daughter 
of a deceased physician of great eminence, 
knew of a cure for it. She was in love with 
Bertram, Count of Eousillon, still a minor, 
who held large possessions as tenant in cajpite 
under the crown, and was in ward to the 
King. Helena undertook the cure, making 
this condition : — 

Mel Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand 
What husband in thy power I will command. 

Adding, however : — 



69 



Exempted be from me the arrogance 

To choose from forth the royal blood of France * * * 

But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know 

Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. (Act ir. Sc. 1.) 

She effects the cure, and the King, show- 
ing her all the noble unmarried youths whom 
he then held as wards, says to her — 

Fair maid, send forth thine eye : this youthful parcel 
Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing * * * 

thy frank election make : 

Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake. 

(Act II. Sc. 3.) 

Helena, after excusing herself to several 
of the others, comes to Bertram, and, covered 
■with blushes, declares her election : — 

Hel. I dare not say I take you j but I give 
Me and my service, ever whilst I live, 
Into your guiding power. — This is the man. 

King. Why then, young Bertram, take her : she's 
thy wife. 

Bertram at first strenuously refuses, say- 



In such a business give me leave to use 
The help of mine own eyes. 



70 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

But the King, after mucli discussion, thus 
addresses liim : — 

It is in us to plant thine honour where 

We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt. 

Obey our will, which travails in thy good. * * * * 

Take her by the hand, 

And tell her she is thine. * * * 

Bert. I take her hand. (Act ii. Sc. 3.) 

The ceremony of marriage was immedi-^ 
ately performed, and no penalty or forfeiture 
was incurred. But the law not extending to 
a compulsion upon the ward to live with the 
wife thus forced upon him, Bertram escapes 
from the church door, and abandoning his 
wife, makes off for the wars in Italy, where 
he unconsciously embraced the deserted Hel- 
ena. 

For the cure of the King by the physi- 
cian's daughter, and her being deserted by 
her husband, Shakespeare is indebted to Boc- 
caccio ; but the wardship of Bertram, and 
the obligation of the ward to take the wife 
provided for him by his guardian, Shakespeare 
drew from his own knowledge of the common 
law of England, which, though now obsolete, 



71 

was in full force in tlie reign of Elizabeth, and 
was to be found in Littleton."'*' The adven- 
ture of Parolles's drum and the other comic 
parts of the drama are quite original, and 
these he drew from his own inexhaustible 
fancy. 



mt Wiinuf^ mt 



In this play, Act i. Sc. 2, there is an al- 
lusion to a piece of English law procedure, 
which, although it might have been enforced 
till very recently, could hardly be known to 
any except lawyers, or those who had them- 
selves actually been in prison on a criminal 
charge, — that, whether guilty or innocent, the 
prisoner was liable to pay a fee on his libera- 



* However, according to Littleton, it is doubtful 
whether Bertram, without being liable to any penalty 
or forfeiture, might not have refused to marry Helena, 
— on the ground that she was not of noble descent. 
The lord could not " disparage " the ward by a mesalr 
liance.-^Qo, Litt. 80a. 



72 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

tion. Hermione, trying to persuade Polixenes, 
King of Boliemia, to prolong his stay at tlie 
court of Leontes in Sicily, says to Hni — 

You put me off with limber vows ; but T, 

Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths, 

Shouldyet say, "Sir, no going." * * * 

Force me to keep you as a prisoner^ 

Not like a guest ; so you sliallpay your fees 

When you depart^ and save your thanks. 

I remember when the Clerk of Assize and 
the Clerk of the Peace were entitled to exact 
their fee from all acquitted lorisoners, and 
were supposed in strictness to have a lien on 
their persons. for it. I believe there is now no 
tribunal in England where the practice re- 
mains, excepting the two Houses of Parlia- 
ment ; but the Lord Chancellor and the 
Speaker of the House of Commons still say 
to prisoners about to be liberated from the 
custody of the Black Eod or the Serjeant-at- 
Arms, " You are discharged, paying your 
feesr 



When the trial of Queen Hermione for 
high treason comes off in Act iii. Sc. 2, al- 



THE winter's tale. 73 

thougli the indictment is not altogether ac- 
cording to English legal form, and might be 
held insnfficient on a writ of error, we lawyers 
cannot bnt wonder at seeing it so near perfec- 
tion in charging the treason, and alleging the 
overt act committed by her '' contrary to the 
faith and allegiance of a true subject/' 

It is likewise remarkable that Cleomenes 
and Dion, the messengers who brought back 
the response from the oracle of Delphi, to be 
given in evidence, are sworn to the genuine- 
ness of the document they produce almost in 
the very words now used by the Lord Chan- 
cellor when an officer presents at the bar of 
the House of Lords the copy of a record of a 
court of justice : — 

You here shall swear * * * 

That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have 

Been both at Delphos ] and from thence have brought 

The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand delivered 

Of great Apollo's priest ; and that since then 

You have not dar'd to break the holy seal, 

Nor read the secrets in 't. 



74 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 



linij <|oIin* 



In Shakespeare's dramas founded upon 
English history, more legalisms might have 
"been expected ; but I have met with fewer 
than in those which are taken from the annals 
of foreign nations, or which, without depend- 
ing on locality, " hold the mirror up to na- 
ture." This paucity of reference to law or 
to law proceedings may, perhaps, in part he 
accounted for by the fact that, in these 
"Histories," as they are called, our great 
dramatist is known to have worked upon 
foundations already laid by other men who 
had no technical knowledge, and in several 
instances he aj)pears only to have introduced 
additions and improvements into stock pieces 
to revive their popularity. Yet we find in 
several of the "Histories," Shakespeare's 
fondness for law terms ; and it is still re- 
markable, that whenever he indulges this 
propensity he uniformly lays down good 
law. 



KING JOHN. 75 

Thus in tlie controversy, in tlie opening 
scene of ^Kma John/ between Kobert and 
Philip Faulconhridge, as to which of them 
was to be considered the true heir of the de- 
cealSed Sir Eobert, the King, in giving judg- 
ment, lays down the law of legitimacy most 
perspicuously and soundly, — thus addressing 
Eobert, the plaintiff : — 

" Sirrahj your brother is legitimate : 
Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him ; 
And if she did play false, the fraud was hers, 
Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands • 
That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother, 
Who, as you say, took pains to get this son. 
Had of your father claim'd this son for his ? 
In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept 
This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world : 
In sooth, he might : then, if he were my brother's. 
My brother might not claim him, nor your father, 
Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes — 
My mother's son did get your father's heir ; 
Tour father's heir must have your father's land." 

This is the true doctrine, '^ Pater est 
quern nuptice demonstrant.'^ 

It was likewise properly ruled that the 
father's will, in favour of his son Robert, had 



76 Shakespeare's legal acqtjieements. 

no power to dis^DOSsess the right heir. Philip 
might have recovered the land, if he had not 
preferred the offer made to him by his grand- 
mother^ Elinor, the Queen Dowager, of taking 
the name of Plantagenet, and being dulTbed 
Sir Eichard. 



In Act II. Sc. 1, we encounter a metaphor 
which is purely legal, yet might come nat- 
urally from an attorney's clerk, who had often 
been an attesting witness to the execution of 
deeds. The Duke of Austria, having entered 
into an engagement to support Arthur against 
his unnatural uncle, till the young prince 
should be put in j)ossession of the dominions 
in France to which he was entitled as the 
true heir of the Plantagenets, and should be 
crowned King of England, says, kissing the 
boy to render the covenant more bindiug, 

" Upon thy cheek I lay this zealous kiss, 
As seal to this indenture of my love.''^ 



KING JOHN. 77 

In a subsequent part of this play, the true 
ancient doctrine of ^^the supremacy of tlie 
crown ^' is laid down with great spirit and 
force : and Shakespeare clearly shows that, 
whatever his opinion might have "been on 
speculative dogmas in controversy between 
the Keformers and the Eomanists, he spurned 
the ultramontane pretensions of the Pope, 
which some of our Eoman Catholic fellow 
subjects are now too much disposed to coun- 
tenance, although they were stoutly resisted 
before the Keformation by our ancestors, who 
were good Cathohcs. King John declares, 
Act III. Sc. 1, 

" No Italian priest 
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 
But as we under heaven are supreme head, 
So, under heaven, that great supremacy, 
Where we do reign, we will alone uphold. 
Without th' assistance of a mortal hand. 
So tell the Pope; all reverence set apart 
To him and his usurp'd authority. 
King Philip. Brother of England, you blaspheme 

in this. 
King John. Though you and all the kings of Chris- 
tendom 



78 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, 
Dreading tlie curse that money may buy out, 
And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man. 
Who in that sale sells pardon from himself, — 
Though you and all the rest, so grossly led, 
This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish, 
Yet I alone, alone do me oppose 
■ Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes." 

At tlie same time, it is clear^ from Shake- 
speare's portraiture of Friar Lawrence and 
other Koman Catholic ecclesiastics^ who do 
honour to their church, that he was no bigot, 
and that he regarded with veneration all who 
seek to imitate the meek example of the 
divine founder of the Christian religion. 



Part I. 

In Act III. Sc. 1, we have the partition 
of England and Wales between Mortimer, 
Glendower, and Hotspur, and the business is 



EING HENKY THE FOURTH. 79 

conducted in as clerk-like, attorney-like fash- 
ion, as if it had been the partition of a manor 
between joint tenants, tenants in common, or 
coparceners. 

Glend. Come, here's the map ; shall we divide our 
right, 
According to our three-fold order ta'en ? 

Mort. The archdeacon hath divided it 
Into three limits very equally. 
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, 
By south and east is to my part assign'd : 
And westward, Wales, beyond the Severn shore : 
And all the fertile land within that bound, 
To Owen Glendower: — and, dear Coz, to you, 
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent ; 
And our indentures tri;partit6 are draicn, 
Which leing sealed interchangeably^ 
(A business that this night may execute,) 
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I, 
And my good Lord of Worcester, will set forth. 

It may well he imagined, that in compos- 
ing this speech Shakespeare was recollecting 
how he had seen a deed of partition tripartite 
drawn and executed in his master's office at 
Stratford. 

Afterwards, in the same scene, he repre- 



80 shakespeaee's legal acqtjieements. 

sents that tlie unlearned Hotspur, wlio had 
such an antipathy to "metre ballad-mongers" 
and " mincing poetry/' fully understood this 
conveyancing proceeding, and makes him ask 
impatiently, 

" Are the indentures drawn ? shall we be gone 1" 

Shakespeare may have been taught that 
" livery of seisin " was not necessary to a deed 
of partition, or he would probably have direct- 
ed this ceremony to complete the title. 



So fond was he of law terms, that after- 
wards, when Henry IV. is made to lecture the 
Prince of Wales on his irregularities, and to 
liken him to Eichard II., who, by such im- 
proper conduct, lost the crown, he uses the 
forced and harsh figure, that Kichard 

'''Enfeoffed himself io popularity" (Act iii. Sc. 2). 

I copy Malone's note of explanation on this 
line : — " Gave himself up absolutely to popu- 
larity. A feoffment was the ancient mode of 



KING HENRY THE FOUETH. 81 

conveyance; by whicli all lands in England 
were granted in fee-simple for several ages^ 
till the conveyance of lease and release was 
invented by Serjeant Moor about tbe year 
1630. Every deed of feoffment was accom- 
panied with, livery of seisin, that is, with the 
delivery of corporal possession of the land or 
tenement granted in fee."" 



To " sue out livery " is another law term 
used in this play (Act iv. Sc. 3,) — a proceed- 
ing to be taken by a ward of the crown, on 
coming of age, to obtain possession of his 
lands, which the king had held as guardian in 
chivalry during his minority. Hotspur, in 
giving a description of Henry the Fourth's 
beggarly and suppliant condition when he 
landed at Eavenspurg, till assisted by the 
Percys, says, 

" And when he was not six-and-twenty strong. 
Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, 
A poor unminded outlaw, sneaking home, 
My father gave him welcome to the shore : 
4^ 



82 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

And when he heard him swear, and vow to God, 
He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, 
To sue Ms livery J and beg his peace, 
With tears of innocency and terms of zeal, 
"Mj father, in kind heart and pity mov'd, 
Swore him assistance." 



Part II. 

Arguments liave been drawn from this 
drama against Shakespeare's supposed great 
legal acquirements. It has been objected to 
the very amusing interview, in Act i. Sc. 2, 
between Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice, 
that if Shakespeare had been much of a law- 
yer, he would have known that this great 
magistrate could not examine offenders in the 
manner supposed, and could only take notice 
of offences when they were regularly prosecu- 
ted before him in the Court of King's Bench, 
or at the assizes. But although such is the 
practice in our days, so recently as the be- 



KING HENEY THE FOURTH. 83 

ginning of the eigliteenth century that illus- 
trioiis Judge, Lord Chief Justice Holt, acted 
as a XDolice magistrate, quelling riots, taking 
depositions against parties accused, and, 
where a prima facie case was made out 
against them, committing them for trial. 
Lord Chief Justice Coke actually assisted in 
taking the Earl and Countess of Somerset in- 
to custody when charged with the murder of 
Sir Thomas Overbury, and examined not less 
than three hundred witnesses against them, — 
writing the depositions with his own hand. 
It was quite in course that those charged with 
the robbery at Gadshill should be " had up " 
before Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, and that 
he should take notice of any of them who, 
having disobeyed a summons to appear before 
him, happened to come casually into his pres- 
ence. 

His Lordship is here attended by the tip- 
staff (or orderly), who, down to the present 
day, follows the Chief Justice, like his ^adow, 
wherever he officially appears. On this occa- 
sion the Chief Justice meeting Sir John, natu- 
rally taxes him with having refused to obey 



84 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

tlie summons served iiiDon liim to attend at 
his Lordship's chambers, that he might an- 
swer the information laid against him ; and 
Sir John tries to excuse himself by saying 
that he was then advised by his "counsel 
learned in the laws/' that, as he was march- 
ing to Shrewsbury by the king's orders, he 
was not bound to come. 

Again, it is objected that a Chief Justice 
could not be suj)posed, by any person ac- 
quainted with his station and functions, to 
use such vulgar language as that put into the 
mouth of Sir William Gascoigne when Fal- 
staff will not listen to him, and that this rath- 
er smacks of the butcher's shop in which it is 
alleged that young Shakespeare ^ employed 
himself in killing calves. 

Cli, Just. To punish you by the heels would amend 
the attention of your ears ; and I care not if I do become 
your physician. 

But to "lay by the heels " was the tech- 
nical expression for committing to prison, and 
I could produce from the Eeports various 
instances of its being so used by distinguished 



KING- HENEY THE FOUETH. 85 

judges from the bencli. I will content my- 
self with one. A petition being heard in the 
Court of Chancer}^, before Lord Chancellor 
Jeffreys^ against a great City attorney who 
had given him many briefs at the bar, 
an affidavit was read, swearing that when 
the attorney was threatened with being 
brought before my Lord Chancellor, he ex- 
claimed — " My Lord Chancellor ! I made 
him ! " Lord Chancellor Jeffreys : — " Then 
will I lay my maker hy the heels.'' A war- 
rant of commitment was instantly signed and 
sealed by the Lord Chancellor, and the poor 
attorney was sent off to the Fleet. 

I must confess that I am rather mortified 
by the advantage given to the fat knight over 
my predecessor in this encounter of their 
wits. Sir John professes to treat the Chief 
Justice with profound reverence, interlarding 
his sentences plentifully with jour Lordship 
— " God give your Lordship good time of 
day : I am glad to see your Lordship abroad : 
I heard say your Lordship was sick : I hope 
your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your 
Lordship, though not clean past your youth, 



86 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 

hath yet some smack of age in you, some 
relish of the saltness of time ; and I most 
humbly beseech your Lordship to have a 
reverend care of your health/' Yet Falstaff's 
object is to turn the Lord Chief Justice into 
ridicule, and I am sorry to say that he spleai- 
didly succeeds, — insomuch that after the 
party accused of felony has vaingloriously 
asserted that he himself had done great ser- 
vice to the state, and that his name was 
terrible to the enemy, the Chief Justice, 
instead of committing him to ITewgate to 
answer for the robbery at Gadshill, is con- 
tented with admonishing him to he lionest, 
and dismisses him with a blessing ; — upon 
which Sir John is emboldened to ask the 
Chief Justice for the loan of a thousand 
pounds. To lower the law still further, my 
Lord Chief Justice is made to break oif the 
conversation, in which Falstaff's wit is so 
sparkling, with a very bad pun. 

CTi. Just. Not a penny, not a penny: you are too 
impatient to bear crosses.^ 

* So bad is this pun that perhaps it may not be 



Kma HENRY THE FOURTH. 87 

The same superiority is preserved in tlie 
subseq[uent scene (Act ii. Sc. 1), where Fal- 
staff being arrested on mesne process for debt 
at the suit of Dame Quickly, he gains his 
discharge, with the consent of the Chief 
Justice, by sapng to his Lordship — " My 
Lord, this is a poor mad soul ; and she says, 
up and down the town, that her eldest son is 
like you : " and by insisting that although 
he owed the money, he was privileged from 
arrest for debt," being upon hasty employment 
in the Mno-'s affairs." 



In Act V. Sc. 1, Falstaff, having long 
made Justice Shallow his butt daring a visit 
to him in Gloucestershire, looks forward with 
great delight to the fun of recapitulating at 
the Boar's Head, East Cheap, Shallow's ab- 
surdities ; and, meaning to intimate that this 
would afford him opportunities of amusing 



useless to remind you that the 2:>e7iny and all the royal 
corns then had impressed upon them the sign of the 
cross. 



88 SHAKESPEAEE's legal ACQriEEMENTS. 

the Prince of Wales for a twelvemonth , he 

says — 

"I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to 
keep Prince Henry in continual laughter the wearing 
out of six fashions (which is four terms, or two actions), 
and he shall laugh without inter Valiums." 

Dr. Johnson thns annotates on the " tioo 
actions : — " There is something humorous in 
making a spendthrift compute time by the 
operation of an action for debt.'^ The critic 
supposes,, therefore, that in Shakespeare's 
time final judgment was obtained in an action 
of debt in the second term after the writ com- 
mencing it was sued out ; and as there are 
four terms in the legal year, — Michaelmas 
Term, Hilary Term, Easter Term, and Trinity 
Term — this is a legal circumlocution for a 
twelvemonth. It would seem that the author 
who dealt in such phraseology must have 
been early initiated in the mysteries of terms 
and actions. 



Shakespeare has likewise been blamed for 
an extravagant perversion of law in the prom- 



KING- HENRY THE FOrETH. 89 

ises and threats wHch Falstaff throws out 
on hearing that Henry IV. was dead, and 
that Prince Hal reigned in his stead. 

Fal. Master Robert Shallow, clioose what office 
thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. — Pistol, I will double 
charge thee with dignities. * * * Master Shallow, 
my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am Fortune's 
steward. * * * Come, Pistol, utter more to me ; 
and withal devise something to do thyself good. — Boot, 
boot, master Shallow : I know the young King is sick 
for me. Let us take any man's horses ; the laws of 
England are at my commandment. Happy are they 
which have been my friends, and icoe unto my Lord 
Chief Justice /—Act v. Sc. 4. 

But Falstaff may not unreasonably be 
supposed to have believed that he could do 
all this, even if he were strictly kept to the 
literal meaning of his words. In the natural 
and usual course of things he was to become 
(as it was then called) " favourite " (or, as 
we call it, Prime 3Iinister) to the new king, 
and to have all the power and patronage of 
the crown in his hands. Then, why might 
not Ancient Pistol, who had seen ser^dce, 
have been made TFar Minister ? And if 
Justice Shallow had been pitchforked into the 



90 shakespeake's legal acquirements. 

House of Peers, he miglit have turned out a 
distinguished Laiu Lord. — By taking " any 
man's horses " was not meant stealing tliem^ 
but jpressing them for the king's service, or 
appropriating them at a nominal price, which 
the law would then have justified under the 
king's prerogative of pre-emption. Sir W. 
Gascoigne was continued as Lord Chief Jus- 
tice in the new reign ; but, according to law 
and custom, he was removable, and he no 
doubt expected to be removed, from Ms office. 
Therefore, if Lord Eldon could be supposed 
to have written the play, I do not see how he 
would be chargeable with having forgotten 
any of his law while writing it. 



It is remarkable that while Falstaff and 
his companions, in Act v. Sc. 5, are standing 
in Palace Yard to see the new king returning 
from his coronation in Westminster Abbey, 
Pistol is made to utter an expression used, 
when the record was in Latin, by special 
pleaders in introducing a special traverse or 
negation of a positive material allegation of 



KING HENKY THE SIXTH. — PdRT II. 91 

the opposite side, and so framing an issue of 
fact for tlie determination of tlie jury ; — absque 
hocy " without this that ; " — then repeating 
the allegation to be negatived. But there is 
often much difficulty in explaining or account- 
ing for the phraseology of Ancient Pistol, who 
appears ^^to have been at a great feast of 
languages and stolen the scraps ; '' — so that 
if, when " double charged with dignities/' he 
had been called upon to speak in debate as a^ 
leading member of the government, his ap- 
pointment might have been carped at. 



Pakt II. 



In the speeehes of Jack Cade and his co- 
adjutors in this play we find a familiarity 
with the law and its proceedings which 
strongly indicates that the author must have 
had some professional practice or education 
4* 



92 siiakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

as a lawyer. The second scene in Act iv. 
may be taken as an example. 

Dick. The first thing we do, leVs Mil all the laioyers. 

Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lam- 
entable thing, that the skin of an innocent lamb should 
be made parchment ? — that parchment, being scribbled 
o'er, should undo a man ? Some say the bee stings ; 
but I say 'tis the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a 
thing, and I was never mine own man since. 

The Clerk of Chatham is then brought in, 
who conld " make obligations and write conrt 
hand," and who, instead of " making his mark 
like an honest plain-dealing man," had been 
" so well brought up that he could write his 
name." Therefore he was sentenced to be 
hanged with his pen and ink-horn about his 
neck. 

Surely Shakespeare must have been em- 
ployed to write deeds on parcliment in court 
hand, and to apply the ivax to them in the 
form of seeds : one does not understand how 
he should, on any other theory of his bringing 
up, have been acquainted with these details. 



KING HENEY THE SIXTH. — PAET 11. 93 

Again, the indictment on wMch Lord Say- 
was arraigned, in Act iv. Sc. 7, seems drawn 
by no inexperienced hand : — 

" Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth 
of the realm in erecting a grammar-school : and where- 
aSj before, our forefathers had no other books but the 
score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be 
used ; and contrary to the Mng, his croicn and dignity ^ 
thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy 
face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of 
a noun and a verb, and such aljominaJjle words as no 
Cliristian ear can endure to hear^ Thou hast appointed 
justices of peace, to call poor men before them about 
matters they were not able to answer. jMoreover thou 
hast put them in prison ; and because they could not 
read, thou hast hanged them, when indeed only for that 
cause they have been most worthy to live." 

How acquired I know not, but it is quite 
certain that the drawer of this indictment 
must have had some acquaintance with ^ The 
Crown Circuit Companion/ and must have 
had a full and accurate knowledge of that 
rather obscure and intricate subject — " Felony 
and Benefit of Clergy." 



* " Inter Christianos 7ion nominand,^^ 



94 SHAKESPEAEE''8 LEGAL ACQUIKEMENTS. 

Cade's proclamation, whicli follows, deals 
with still more recondite heads of jurispru- 
dence. Announcing his ]3olicy when he should 
mount the throne, he says : — 

" The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a 
head on his shoulders unless he pay me tribute : there 
shall not a maid be married but she shall pay me her 
maidenhead ere they have it. Men shall hold of me in 
cajnte; and we charge and command that their wives 
be as, free as heart can loisJi, or tongue can telV^ 

He thus declares a great forthcoming 
change in the tenure of land and in the lia- 
bility to taxation : he is to have a poll-tax 
like that wliich had raised the rebellion ; but, 
instead of coming down to the daughters of 
blacksmiths who had reached the age of fif- 
teen, it was to be confined to the nobility. 
Then he is to legislate on the mercheta 
mulierum. According to Blackstone and 
other high authorities this never had been 
known in England ; although, till the reign 
of Malcolm III., it certainly appears to have 
been established in Scotland ; but Cade inti- 
mates his determination to adopt it, — with 
this alteration, that instead of conferring the 



KING- HENRY THE SIXTH. — PART II. 95 

privilege on every lord of a manor, to be ex- 
ercised within the manor, he is to assume it 
exclusively for himself all over the realm, as 
belonging to his prerogative royal. 

He proceeds to announce his intention to 
abolish tenure in free soccage, and that all 
men should hold of him in capite, concluding 
with a licentious jest, that although his sub- 
jects should no longer hold in free soccage, 
" their wives should be as free as heart can 
wish, or tongue can tell." Strange to say, 
this phrase, or one almost identically the 
same, " as free as tongue can speak or heart 
can think," is feudal, and was known to the 
ancient law of England. In the tenth year 
of King Henry YII., that very distinguished 
judge^ Lord Hussey, who was Chief Justice 
of England during four reigns, in a considered 
judgment delivered the opinion of the whole 
Court of King's Bench as to the construction 
to be put upon the words, " as free as tongue 
can speak or heart can think." See Year 
Book, Eil. Term, 10 Hen. VIL, fol. 13, 
pl. 6. , , 



Shakespeare's legal acquireivients. 



(^m\m m\& ^xmi&n. 



Tn this play tlie autlior sliows his insatia- 
ble desire to illustrate liis descriptions of kiss- 
ing by his recollection of the forms used in 
executing deeds. When Pandarus (Act iii. 
So. 2) has brought Troilus and Cressida to- 
gether in the Orchard to gratify their warm 
inclinations, he advises Troilus to give Cressi- 
da " a Jciss in fee-farm," which Malone ex- 
plains to be "a kiss of a duration that has no 
bounds, — a fee-farm being a grant of lands in 
fee, that is for ever, reserving a rent certain." 

The advice of Pandarus to the lovers being 
taken, he exclaims — 

•'"What! billing again? Here's — In witness the 
imrties in tercliangeably " 

the exact form of the testatum clause in an 
indenture — "In witness whereof the parties 
interchangeably have hereto set their hands 
and seals." 

To avoid a return to this figure of speech 



KING LEAE. 97 

I may here mention otlier instances in which 
Shakespeare introduces it. In ' Measure for 
Measure/ Act iv. Sc. 1 — 

''But my kisses bring again 
Seals of love, but seaVd in vain : " 

and in his poem of ^ Yenus and Adonis ' — 

"Pure lips, siceet seals in my soft lips impriated, 
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing? " 



iin0 Saw 



In Act I. Sc. 4 the Fool makes a lengthy 
rhyming speech, containing a great many trite 
but usefal moral maxims, such as — 

Have more than thou showest, 
Speak less than thou knowest, &c., 

which the testy old King found rather flat 
and tiresome. 

Lear. This is nothing, fool. 

Fool. Then, 'tis lil)e the dreath of an wfeed lawyer: 
you gave me nothing for it. 
5 



98 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. 

This seems to show that Shakespeare had 
frequently been present at trials in courts of 
justice^ and now speaks from his own recollec- 
tion. There is no trace of such a proverbial 
saying as " like the breath of an unfeed law- 
yer/' — while all the world knows the proverb, 
" Whosoever is his own counsel has a fool for 
his client/' 

How unfeed lawyers may have comported 
themselves in Shakespeare's time I know not ; 
but I am bound to say, in vindication of " my 
order/' that in my time there has been no 
ground for the Fool's sarcasm upon the bar. 
The two occasions when " the breath of an 
unfeed lawyer " attracts notice in this genera- 
tion are when he pleads for a party suing m 
forma pauperis, or when he defends a person 
prosecuted by the crown for high treason. It 
is contrary to etiquette to take a fee in the 
one case as well as in the other ; and on all 
such occasions counsel, from a regard to their 
own credit, as well as from conscientious 
motives, uniformly exert themselves with ex- 
traordinary zeal, and put forth all their learn- 
ing and eloquence. 



KING LEAE. 99 

I confess that there is some foundation for 
the saying that "a lawyer's opinion which 
costs nothing is worth nothing ;" but this can 
only apply to opinions given off-hand, in the 
course of common conversation, — where there 
is no time for deliberation, where there is a 
desire to say what will be agreeable, and 
where no responsibility is incurred. 



In Act II. Sc. 1, there is a remarkable ex- 
ample of Shakespeare's use of technical legal 
phraseology. Edmund, the wicked illegiti- 
mate son of the Earl of Grioster, having suc- 
ceeded in deluding his father into the behef 
that Edgar, the legitimate son, had attempt- 
ed to commit parricide, and had been pre- 
vented from accomplishing the crime by 
Edmund's tender solicitude for the Earl's 
safety, the Earl is thus made to express a de- 
termination that he would disinherit Edgar 
(who was supposed to have fled from justice), 
and that he would leave all his possessions to 
Edmund : — 



100 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 

Glo. Strong and fasten'd villain ! 

***** 
All ports I'll bar ; the villain shall not 'scape. 

Besides, his picture 
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom 
May have due note of him ;* and of my land, 
Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means 
To malce thee ca;pable. 

In forensic discussions respecting legiti- 
macy, tlie question is put, whether the in- 
dividual whose status is to be determined is 
" capable," i. e. capable of inheriting ; but it 
is only a lawyer who would express the idea 
of legitimising a natural son by simply say- 
ing— 

I'll work the means 

To make him capable. 



Again, in Act iii. Sc. 5, we find Edmund 
trying to incense the Duke of Cornwall against 
his father for having taken part with Lear 



* One would suppose that photography, by which 
this mode of catching criminals is now practised, had 
been invented in the reign of King Lear. 



KING LEAE. 101 

when so cruelly treated by Goneril and Ee- 
gan. The two daughters had become the 
reigning sovereigns, to whom Edmund pro- 
fessed to owe allegiance. Cornwall having 
created Edmund Earl of Gloster says to him — 

" Seek out where thy father is, that he may be 
ready for our apprehension." 

On which Edmimd observes aside — 

" If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his 
suspicion more fully." 

Upon this Dr. Johnson has the following 
note : — " He uses the word [comforting] in 
the juridical sense, for supporting, helping." 

The indictment against an accessary after 
the fact, for treason, charges that the acces- 
sary " comforted '' the principal traitor after 
knowledge of the treason. 



In Act III. Sc. 6, the imaginary trial of 
the two unnatural daughters is conducted in 
a manner showing a perfect familiarity with 
criminal procedure. 



102 shakespeaee's legal acquirei^ients. 

Lear places the two Judges on tlie bencli, 
viz., Mad Tom and the Fool. He properly 
addresses the former as " the robed man of 
justice," but, although both were "of the 
commission," I do not quite understand why 
the latter is called his " yokefellow of equity," 
unless this might be supposed to be a special 
commission, like that which sat on Mary, 
Queen of Scots, including Lord Chancellor 
Audley. 

Lear causes Goneril to be arraigned- first, 
and then proceeds as a witness to give evi- 
dence against her, to prove an overt act of 
high treason : 

" I here take my oatli before this honourable assem- 
bly, she kicked the poor king, her father." 

But the trial could not be carried on with 
perfect regularity on account of Lear's mad- 
ness, and, without waiting for a verdict, he 
himself sentences Began to be anatomized : — 

' Then, let them anatomize Regan ; see what breeds 
about her heart." 



HA]MLET. 103 



ixmUt 



In tMs tragedy various expressions and 
allusions crop out, showing tlie substratum 
of law in tlie author's mind, — e. g., the de- 
scription of the disjDuted territory which was 
the cause of the war between Norway and 
Poland : — 

We go to gain a little patch of ground, 

That hath in it no profit but the name. 

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it, 

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole 

A ranker rate, slioulcl it le sold in fee. (Act iv. Sc. 4.) 

Earlier in the play (Act i. Sc. 1) Marcel- 
lus inquires what was the cause of the war- 
like preparations in Denmark — 

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, 
And foreign mart for implements of war ? 
Why such impress of shijncrights, ichose sore fasJc 
Does not divide the Sunday from the weeTc? 

Such confidence has there been in Shake- 
speare's accuracy, that this passage has been 



104 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

quoted, botli by text writers and by Judges 
on the bench, as an authority upon the le- 
gality of the press-gang, and upon the de- 
bated question whether sliiioivriglitSj as well 
as common seamen, are liable to be pressed 
into the service of the royal navy.* 



Hamlet, when mortally wounded in Act v. 
Sc. 2, represents that Death comes to him in 
the shape of a sheriffs officer, as it were to 
take him into custody under a capias ad 
satisfaciendum : — 

" Had I but time (as this fell Serjeant, Death, 
Is strict in his arrest), Oh ! I could tell you," &c. 



The G-rave-diggers' scene, however, is the 
mine which produces the richest legal ore. 
The discussion as to whether Ophelia was en- 
titled to Christian burial proves that Shake- 
speare had read and studied Plowden's Eeport 

* See Barrington on the Ancient Statutes, p. 300. 



HAMLET. 105 

of the celebrated case of Hales v. Petit^ tried 
in tlie reign of Philip and Mary, and that he 
intended to ridicule the counsel who argued 
and the Judges who decided it. 

On the accession of Mary Tudor, Sir 
James Hales, a puisne Judge of the Common 
Pleas, was prosecuted for being concerned in 
the plot which placed the Lady Jane Grey 
for a few days upon the throne ; but, as he 
had previously expressed a strong opinion that 
the succession of the right heir ought not to 
be disturbed, he was pardoned and released 
from prison. ^N'evertheless, so frightened was 
he by the proceedings taken against him that 
he went out of his mind, and, after attempt- 
ing suicide by a penknife, he drowned himself 
by walking into a river. Upon an inquisition 
before the Coroner, a verdict oi felo de se was 
returned. Under this finding his body was 
to be buried in a cross-road, with a stake 
thrust through it, and all his goods were for- 
feited to the crown. It so happened that at 
the time of his death he was possessed of a 
lease for years of a large estate in the county 
of Kent, granted by the Archbishop of Can- 



106 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 

terbuiy jointly to him and Ms wife, the Lady 
Margaret, who survived him. Upon the sup- 
position that this lease was forfeited, the 
estate was given by the crown to one Cyriac 
Petit, who took possession of it, — and Dame 
Margaret Hales, the widow, brought this ac- 
tion against him to recover it. The only 
question was whether the forfeiture could be 
considered as having taken place in the life- 
time of Sir James Hales : for, if not, the 
plaintiff certainly took the estate by survivor- 
ship. 

Her counsel, Serjeants Southcote and 
Puttrel, powerfully argued that, the offence 
of suicide being the killing of a man's self, it 
could not be completed in his lifetime, for as 
long as he was alive he had not killed him- 
self, and, the moment that he died, the estate 
vested in the plaintiff. " The felony of the 
husband shall not take away her title by sur- 
vivorship, for in this manner of felony two 
things are to be considered — first, the cause 
of the death ; secondly, the death ensuing 
the cause ; and these two make the felony, 
and without both of them the felony is not 



HAMLET. 107 

consummate. And the cause of the death is 
the act done in the party's lifetimCj which 
makes the death to follow. And the act 
which brought on the death here was the 
throwing himself voluntarily into the water, 
for this was the cause of his death. And if a 
man kills himself by a wound which he gives 
himself with a knife, or if he hangs himself, 
as the wound or the hanging, which is the act 
done in the party's lifetime, is the cause of 
his death, so is the throwing himself into the 
water here. Forasmuch as he cannot be at- 
tainted of his own death, because he is dead 
before there is any time to attaint him, the 
finding of his death by the Coroner is by ne- 
cessity of law eq[uivalent to an attainder in 
fact coming after his death. He cannot be 
fdo de se till the death is fully consummate, 
and the death precedes the felony and tl^ 
forfeiture." 

Walsh, Serjeant, contra^ argued that the 
felony was to be referred back to the act 
which caused the death. "TOe act consists 
of three parts : the first is the imagination, 
which is a reflection or meditation of the 



108 shakespeake's legal acquirements. 

mind, whether or not it is convenient for him 
to destroy himself, and what way it can be 
done ; the second is the resolution, which is a 
determination of the mind to destroy himself ; 
the third is the perfection, which is the exe- 
cution of what the mind had resolved to do. 
And of all the parts, the doing of the act is 
the greatest in the judgment of our law, and 
it is in effect the whole. Then here the act 
done by Sir James Hales, which is evil, and 
the cause of his death, is the throwing him- 
self into the water, and the death is but a se- 
quel thereof" 

Lord C. J. Dyer and the whole court gave 
judgment for the defendant, holding that al- 
though Sir James Hales could hardly be said 
to have killed himself in his lifetime, "the 
forfeiture shall have relation to the act done 
by Sir James Hales in his lifetime, which was 
the cause of his death, viz., the throwing 
himself into the water." Said they, " Sir 
James Hales was dead, and how came he to 
hi^ death ? by drowning ; and who drowned 
him ? Sir James Hales ; and when did he 
drown him ? in his lifetime. So that Sir 



HAMLET. 109 

James Hales^ being alive, caused Sir James 
Hales to die ; and tlie act of the living man 
was the death of the dead man. He there- 
fore committed felony in his lifetime, although 
there was no possibility of the forfeiture being 
found in his lifetime, for until his death there 
was no cause of forfeiture." 

The argument of the gravediggers upon 
Ophelia's case is almost in the words reported 
by Plowden : — 

1 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that 
wilfully seeks her OTvn salvation ? 

2 Glo. The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it 
Christian burial. 

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself 
in her own defence ? 

2 Glo. Why, 'tis found so. 

1 Clo. It must be 86 offendendo ; it cannot be else. 
For here lies the point : if I drown myself wittingly, it 
argues an act ; and an act hath three branches ; it is to 
act, to do, and to perform. Argal she drowned herself 
wittingly. * * * Here lies the water j good : here 
stands the man ; good. If the man go to this water 
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes ; mark 
you that : but if the water come to him and drown 
him, he drowns not himself. Argal he that is not 
guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. 



110 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 

2 Clo. But is this law? 

1 Clo. Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest law. 



Hamlet's own speech, on taking in liis 
hand what he supposed might be the skull of 
a lawyer, abounds with lawyer-like thoughts 
and words : — 

" Where be his quiddits now, bis quillets, his cases, 
his tenures, and his tricks ? Why does he sufifer this 
rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a 
dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of bat- 
tery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a 
great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizan- 
ces, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is 
this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recov- 
eries, to have his fine pate full of fine du^t ? will his 
vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and 
double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair 
of indentures ? " 

These terms of art are all used seemingly 
with a full knowledge of their import ; and it 
would puzzle some practising barristers with 
whom I am acquainted to go over the whole 
seriatim, and to define each of them satis- 
factorily. 



MACBETH. Ill 



mnMh 



In perusing this unrivalled tragedy I am 
so carried away by the intense interest which 
it excites, that I fear I may have passed over 
legal phrases and allusions which I ought to 
have noticed ; hut the only passage I find 
with the juridical mark upon it in ' Macbeth/ 
is in Act iv. Sc. 1, where, the hero exulting in 
the assurance from the Weird Sisters that he 
can receive harm from " none of woman born/' 
hCj rather in a lawyer-like manner, resolves to 
provide an indemnity, if the worst should come 
to the worst, — 

"But yet I'll make assurance double sure, 
And talce a lond of fate ; " 

— without much considering what should be 
the penalty of the bond, or how he was to en- 
force the remedy, if the condition should be 
broken. 

He, immediately after, goes on in the 
same legal jargon to say, — 



112 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 
our high-i:)lac'd Macbeth 



Shall live tlie lease of nature." 

But, unluckily for Macbeth, the lease con- 
tained no covenants for title or quiet enjoy- 
ment : — there were likewise forfeitures to be 
incurred by the tenant, — with a clause of re- 
entry^ — and consequently ke was speedily 
ousted/^ 



mMu, 



In the very first scene of this play there 
is a striking instance of Shakespeare's prone- 
ness to legal phraseology : — where lago, 
giving an explanation to Koderigo of the 



* The lease frequently presents itself to Shake- 
speare's mind, as in ' Kichard III.,' Act iv. Sc. 4 — 

Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour, 
Canst thou de7nise to any child of mine ? 

This is as clear a reference to leasing^ as if he had said 
in full, " demise, lease, grant and to farm let." 



OTHELLO. 113 

manner in which he had been disappointed in 
not obtaining the place of Othello's lieutenant, 
notwithstanding the solicitations in his favour 
of " three great ones of the city," says — 

" But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, 
Evades them with a bombast circumstance 
Horribly stuff 'd with epithets of war, 
And, in conclusion, 
Nonsuits my mediators." 

'^Nonsuiting'' is known to the learned to 
be the most disreputable and mortifying mode 
of being beaten : it indicates that the action 
is wholly unfounded on the plaintiff's own 
showing, or that there is a fatal defect in the 
manner in which his case has been got up : 
insomuch that Mr. Chitty, the great special 
pleader, used to give this advice to young 
barristers practising at nisi prius : — " Always 
avoid your attorney when nonsuited, for till 
he has a little time for reflection, however 
much you may abuse the Judge, he will think 
that the nonsuit was all your fault." 



114: Shakespeare's legal acqtjieements. 

In the next scene Shakespeare gives us 
very distinct proof that he was acquainted 
with Admiralty law^ as well as with the pro- 
cedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the 
feat of the Moor in carrying off Desdemona 
against her father's consent^ which might 
either make or mar his fortune, according as 
the act might he sanctioned or nullified; lago 
observes — 

" Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack : 
If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever ; " — 

the trope indicating that there would be a 
suit in the High Court of Admiralty to de- 
termine the validity of the capture. 



Then follows, in Act i. Sc. 3, the trial of 
Othello before the Senate, as if he had been 
indicted on Stat. 33 Hen. VII. c. 8, for prac- 
tising " conjuration, witchcraft, enchantment, 
and sorcery, to provoke to unlawful love." 
Brabantio, the prosecutor, says — 

" She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted 
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks j 



OTHELLO. 115 

For Nature so preposterously to err * * * 
Sans witchcraft could not." 

The presiding Judge at first seems alarm- 
ingly to favour the prosecutor, saying — 

Duke. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding 
Hath thus beguil'd your daughter of herself, 
And you of her, the bloody book of law 
You shall yourself read, in the bitter letter, 
After your own sense. 

The Moor, although acting as his own 
counsel, makes a noble and skilful defence, 
directly meeting the statutable misdemeanour 
with which he is charged, — and referring 
pointedly to the very words of the indictment 
and the Act of Parliament : — 

"I will a round unvarnish'd tal6 deliver 
Of my whole course of love ; loTiat drugs, ^cliat charms^ 
W7iat conjuration, and what migJity magic 
(For such proceedings I am charged withal) 
I won his daughter with." 

Having fuUy opened his case, showing that 
he had used no forbidden arts, and having ex- 
plained the course which he had lawfully pur- 
sued, he says in conclusion : — 



116 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 

" This only is the witchcraft I have used : 
Here comes the lady — let her witness it." 

He tlaen exammes the witness, and is 
liononraWy acquitted. 



Again, tlie application to Othello to for- 
give Cassio-is made to assume tlie sliape of a 
juridical proceeding. Thus Desdemona con- 
cludes her address to Cassio, assuring him of 
her zeal as his Solicitor: — 

" I'll intermingle every thing he does 
With Cassio's suit : Therefore be merry, Cassio ; 
For thy Solicitor shall rather die 
TJiaii give thy cause aicay.^^ — (Act iii. sc. 3.) 



The subsequent part of the same scene 
shows that Shakespeare was well acquainted 
with all courts, low as well as high ; — ^where 
lasco asks — 



"&" 



Who has a breast so pure 
But some uncleanly apprehensions 
Keep leets and law-days^ and in session sit 
With meditations lawful ? 



Ain-ONIO AND CLEOPATRA. 117 



In ^ Julius Coesar ' I could not find a sin- 
gle instance of a Koman being made to talk 
like an Englisli lawyer ; but in ' Antony and 
Cleopatra' (Act i. Sc. 4) Lepidus^ in trying 
to palliate tbe bad qualities and misdeeds of 
Antony, uses the language of a conveyancer's 
chambers in Lincoln's Inn : — 

" His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, 
More fiery by night's blackness ; licreditary 
Rather than 'jiiurchaidP 

That is to say, they are taken by descent^ 
not hj jpurcJiase.-^ 

Lay gents (viz., all except lawyers) under- 
stand by " purchase" buying for a sum of 



* So in • the Second Part of Henry IV.,' Act iv. 
Sc. 4, the King, who had usurped the crown, says to the 
Prince of Wales — 

For what in me was imrcMs'd 
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort. 

i» e. I took hj purchase^ you will take by descent. 



118 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

money, called the price j but lawyers consider 
tliat " purchase '' is opposed to descent, — that 
all things come to the owner either by descent 
or by purchase, and that whatever does not 
come through operation of law by descent is 
purchased, although it may be the free gift 
of a donor. Thus, if land be devised by will 
to A. in fee, he takes by purchase, or to B. 
for life, remainder to A. and his heirs, B. be- 
ing a stranger to A., A. takes 'bj purchase; 
but upon the death of A., his eldest son would 
take by descent. 

English lawyers sometimes use these terms 
metaphorically, like Lepidus. Thus a Law 
Lord who has suffered much from hereditary 
gout, although very temperate in his habits, 
says, " I take it by descent, not hj purchase," 
Again, Lord Chancellor Eldon, a very bad 
shot, having insisted on going out quite alone 
to shoot, and boasted of the heavy bag of 
game which he had brought home, Lord Stow- 
ell, insinuating that he had filled it with game 
bought from a poacher, used to say, "My 
brother takes his game — not by descent, but 
by — purchase;" — this being a pendant to 



COEIOLANUS. 119 

anotlier joke Lord Stowell was fond of — " My 
brother, the Chancellor, in vacation goes out 
with his gun to kill — time/' 



%rirfmiu^* 



In this drama, in which we should not ex- 
pect to find any allusion to English juridical 
proceedings, Shakespeare shows that he must 
have been present before some tiresome, testy, 
choleric judges at Stratford, Warwick, or 
Westminster, — whom he evidently intends to 
depict and to satirise, — like my distinguished 
friend Charles Dickens, in his famous re- 
port of the trial of Bardel v. Pickioick, be- 
fore Mr. Justice Starey, for breach of promise 
of marriage. Menenius (Act ii. Sc. 1), in re- 
proaching the two tribunes, Sicinius and Bru- 
tus, with their own offences, which they for- 
get while they inveigh against Coriolanus, 
says — 

" You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hear- 



120 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

ing a cause between an orange-wife and a posset-seller 
and then re-journ the controversy of three pence to a 
second day of audience. When you are hearing a mat- 
ter 'between yyarty and party ^ if you chance to be pinch- 
ed with the coliCj you make faces like mummers, set up 
the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a 
^pot dismiss the controversy pleading more en- 
tangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in 
their cause is, calling both the parties knaves." 

Shakespeare here mistakes the duties of 
the Tribune for those of the Frcetor; — ^but in 
truth he was recollecting with disgust what 
he had himself witnessed in his own country. 
Nowadays all English judges are exemplary 
for despatch, patience, and good temper ! ! ! 



'gmm m& Jultd 



The first scene of this romantic drama 
may he studied by a student of the Inns of 
Court to SLcquiie a knowledge of the law of 
" assault and "battery/' and what will amount 
to a justification. Although Sampson ex- 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 121 

claims, " My naked weapon is out : quarrel, 
I will back thee," lie acids, " Let ns take the 
law of our sides ; let them begin/' Then we 
learn that neither froiuning, nor hiting tlie 
tJiumh, nor answering to a question, " Do you 
bite your thumb at us, Sir ? " "I do bite my 
thumb. Sir,'' — ^would be enough to support 
the plea of se defendendo/-' 

The scene ends with old Montagu and old 
Capulet being bound over, in the English 
fashion, to heep the peace, — in the same man- 
ner as two Warwickshire clowns, who had 
been fighting, might have been dealt with at 
Charlecote before Sir Thomas Lucy. 



The only other scene in this play I have 
marked to be noticed for the use of law terms 



* To show the ignorance and stupidity of Sir An- 
drew Aguecheek ('Twelfth Night,' Act iv. Sc. 1) in 
supposing that son assault demesne (or that the Plaintiff 
gave the first blow) is not a good defence to an action 
of battery, he is made to say, "I'll have an action of 
battery against him, if there be any law in Illyria: 
tliougTi I struck liimfirst^ yet ifs no matter for that," 
6 



122 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 

is that between Mercutio and Benvolio, in 
which they keenly dispute which of the two 
is the more quarrelsome ; — at last Benvolio, — 
not denying that he had quarrelled with a 
man for coughing in the street, whereby he 
wakened Benvolio's dog that lay asleep in the 
sun, — or that he had quarrelled with another 
for tying his new shoes with old riband, — con- 
tents himself with this tu quoque answer to 
Mercutio : — 

An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man 
should buy x\ie fee-simple of my life for an hour and a 
quarter. (Act iii. Sc. 1.) 

Talking of \kQ fee-simple of a man's life, 
and calculating how many hours' purchase it 
was worth, is certainly what might not un- 
naturally be expected from the clerk of a 
country attorney.* 



* So in 'All's "Well that Ends Well' (Act iv. Sc. 
3) Parolles, the bragging cowardly soldier, is made to 
talk like a conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn: — "He will 
sell the fee-smple of Ms salvation * * and cut tlie 
entail from all remainders.''^ 



POEMS. 123 



Qtm^. 



With a view to your inquiry respecting 
the learning of Shakespeare I have now, my 
dear Mr. Payne Collier, gone through all his 
plays, — and I can venture to speak of their 
contents with some confidence, having been 
long familiar with them. His Poems are by 
no means so well known to me ; for, although 
I have occasionally looked into them, and I 
am not blind to their beauties, I must confess 
that I never could discover in them (like some 
of his enthusiastic admirers) the same proofs 
of surpassing genius which render him im- 
mortal as a dramatist. But a cursory perusal 
of them does discover the propensity to legal 
thoughts and words which might be expected 
in an attorney's clerk who takes to rhyming. 

I shaU select a few instances, without un- 
necessarily adding any comment. 

From Venus and Adonis. 

" But when the Jiearfs attorney once is mute, 
The clieiit breaks as desperate m the swii." 



124 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

" Which purchase if thou make for fear of slips. 
Set thy seal-7nanual on my icax-red lips,^^ 



" Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee.''^ 

From the Eape of Lucrece. 

'•' Dim register and notary of shame." 



" For me I force not argument a straw. 
Since that my case is past the help of laio^ 



" No rightful plea might plead for justice there." 



Hath served a duml arrest upon his tongue." 



From tlie Sonnets. 

' When to the sessions ofstceet silent thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past." 



" So should that beauty which you hold in 



" And summer's lease hath all too short a date." 



" And 'gainst thyself a lawful plea commence." 



SONNETS. 125 

" But be contented ; when that fell arrest 
Without all dail shall cany me away."* 



Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted? 



Which works on leases of short numbered hours." 



" Lord of my love^ to whom in vassalage 
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 
To thee I send this written embassage."! 



" And I myself am mortgaged.'''' 



" Why so large cost, having so sliort a lease f "J 



" So should that beauty, which you Tiold in lease. 
Find no determination^^ 



* Death is the sheriff's officer, strict in his arrest, 
and will take no bail. 

t This is the beginning of a love-letter, in the lan- 
guage of a vassal doing homage to his hege lord. 

% Taxing an overcharge in the attorney's bill of 
costs. 

§ The word "determination" is always used by 
lawyers instead of " end." 



126 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 



Sonnet XLYI. 

" Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war 
How to divide the conquest of thy sight ; 
Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would bar, 
My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. 
My Heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie 
(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes), 
But the Defendant doth that plea deny, 
And says in him thy fair appearance lies. 
To 'cide this title is impannelled 
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the Heart ; 
And by their verdict is determined 
The clear Eye's moiety, and the dear Heart's part j 
As thus : mine Eyes' due is thine outward part. 
And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart." 



I need not go further than this sonnet, 
which is so intensely legal in its language and 
imagery, that without a considerable knowl- 
edge of English forensic procedure it cannot 
be fully understood. A lover being supposed 
to have made a conquest of [i. e. to have 
gained hj purchase] his mistress, his Eye and 
his Heart, holding as joint-tenants, have a 
contest as to how she is to be partitioned be- 



SONNETS. • 127 

tween them^ — eacli moiety then to be held in 
severalty. There are regular Pleadings in 
the suit^ the Heaet being represented as 
Plaintiff and the Eye as Defendant. At 
last issue is joined on what the one affirms 
and the other denies. Now a juiy [in the 
nature of an inquest] is to be impannelled to 
'cide [decide] and by their verdict to appor- 
tion between the litigating parties the subject 
matter to be divided. The jury fortunately 
ar-e unanimous, and after due deliberation find 
for the Eye in respect of the lady's outward 
form, and for the Heart in respect of her in- 
ward love. 

Surely Sonnet xlyi. smells as potently of 
the attorney's office as any of the stanzas 
penned by Lord Kenyon while an attorney's 
clerk in Wales. 



128 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. 



^luik.^puitit'.^ '^lll 



Among Shakespeare's writings, I think 
that attention should be paid to his Will 
for, nj)on a careful perusal, it will he found 
to have been in all probability composed by 
himself. It seems much too simple, terse, 
and condensed, to have been the composition 
of a Stratford attorney, who was to be paid 
by the number of lines which it contained. 
But a testator, without professional experi- 
ence, could hardly have used language so ap- 
propriate as we find in this will, to express 
his meaning. 

Shakespeare, the greatest of British dram- 
atists, appears to have been as anxious as 
Sir Walter Scott, the greatest of British 
novelists, to found a family, although he does 
not require all his descendants to " bear the 
name and arms of Shakespeare." But, as far 
as the rules of English law would ]3ermit, he 
seeks to perpetuate in an heir male, descended 
from one of his daughters (his son having died 



HIS WILL. 129 

in infancy, and there being no longer any 
prospect of issue male of his own), all the 
houses and lands he had acquired, — which 
were quite sufficient for a respectable "War- 
wickshire squire. His favourite daughter, 
Susanna, married to Dr. Hall, an eminent 
physician, was to be the stirjps from which 
this Hue of male heirs was to spring ; and the 
testator creates an estate in tail male, — with 
remainders over, which, but for fines and re- 
coveries, would have kept the whole of his 
property in one male representative for gen- 
erations to come. 

The will, dated 25th March, 1616, a 
month before his death, having given legacies 
to various friends and relations, thus pro- 
ceeds : 



" Item, I give, will, bequeath, and devise, unto my 
daughter, Susanna Hall, for better enabling of her to 
perform this my will and towards performance thereof, 
all that capital messuage or tenement, with the appur- 
tenances, in Stratford aforesaid, called the New Place, 
wherein I now dwell, and two messuages or tenements 
with the appurtenances, situate, lying, and being in 
Henley Street, within the borough of Stratford afore- 



130 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 

said ; and all my barns, stables, orchards, gardens, 
lands, tenements, and hereditaments whatsoever, sit- 
uate, lying, and being, or to be had, received, perceived, 
or taken, within the towns, hamlets, villages, fields, 
and grounds of Stratford-upon-Avon, Old Stratford, 
Bishopton, and Welcombe, or in any of them, in the 
said county of Warwick ; and also all that messuage or 
tenement, with the appurtenances, wherein one John 
Kobinson dwelleth, situate, lying, and being in the 
Blackfriars in London, near the Wardrobe ; and all 
other my lands, tenements, and hereditaments whatso- 
ever; to have and to hold all and singular the said 
premises, with their appurtenances, unto the said Su- 
sanna Hall, for and during the term of her natural 
life ; and after her decease, to the first son of her body 
lawfully issuing, and to the heirs males of the body of 
the said first son lawfully issuing ; and for default of 
such issue, to the said second son of her body lawfully 
issuing, and to the heirs males of the body of the sec- 
ond son lawfully issuing ; and for default of such heirs, 
to the third son of the body of the said Susanna law- 
fully issuing, and to the heirs males of the body of the 
said third son lawfully issuing ; and for default of such 
issue, the same so to be and remain to the fourth, fifth, 
sixth, and seventh sons of her body, lawfully issuing 
one after another, and to the heirs males of the bodies 
of the said fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh sons law- 
fully issuing, in such manner as it is before limited to 
be and remain to the first, second, and third sons of her 
body, and to their heirs males ; and for default of such 



HIS WILL. 131 

issue, the said premises to be and remain to my said 
niece Hall, and the heirs males of her body lawfully 
issuing ; and for default of such issue, to my daughter 
Judith, and the heirs males of her body lawfully issu- 
ing ; and for default of such issue, to the right heu'S of 
me the said William Shakespeare for ever." 

In liis willj when originally engrossed, 
there was no notice whatever taken of his 
wife ; but immediately after these limitations 
he subsequently interpolated a bequest to her 
in the following words : — 

" I give unto my wife my second best bed with the 
furniture." 

The subject of this magnificent gift being 
only personal property, he shows his technical 
sMll by omitting the word devise, which he 
had used in disposing of his reality.'^ 



* The idolatrous worshippers of Shakespeare, who 
think it .necessary to make his moral qualities as ex- 
alted as his poetical genius, account for this sorry be- 
quest, and for no other notice being taken of poor Mrs. 
Shakespeare in the will, by saying that he knew she 
was sufficiently provided for by her right to dower out 
of his landed property, which the law would give her ; 
and they add that he must lime leen tenderly attached 



132 shakespeake's legal acquirements. 

Having concluded my examination of 
Shakespeare's juridical phrases and forensic 
allusions, — on the retrospect I am amazed, 



to her, because (they take upon themselves to say) she 
was exquisitely beautiful as well as strictly virtuous. 
But she was left by her husband without house or fur- 
niture (except the second best bed), or a kind word, or 
any other token of his love ; and I sadly fear that be- 
tween William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway the 
course of true love never did run smooth. His boyish 
inexperience was no doubt pleased for a short time 
with her caresses ; but he probably found that their 
union was " misgraffed in respect of years," and gave 
advice from his own experience when he said, — 

"Let still the woman take. 
An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
So sways she level in her husband's heart. 

For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
Our fancies are more giddy and infirm, 
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
Than women's are. * * 
Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent ; 
For women are like roses ; whose fair flower, 
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour." 

To strengthen the suspicion that Shakespeare was 
likely not to have much respect for his wife, persons 
animated by the spirit of the late John Wilson Croker 
(although Shakespeare»3 biographers, in the absence 
of any register of his marriage, had conjectured that it 
took place in June, 1582), by searching the records of 



RETROSPECT. 133 

not only by their number, but by the accura- 
cy and propriety with wbicli they are uniform- 
ly introduced. There is nothing so dangerous 
as for one not of the craft to tamper with our 
free-masonry. In the House of Commons I 
have heard a county member, who meant to 
intimate that he entirely concurred with the 
last preceding speaker, say, '^ I join issue with 
the honourable gentleman who has just sat 
down ; " the legal sense of which is, "I flatly 
contradict all his facts and deny his infer- 
ences.'"' Junius, who was fond of dabbling 
in law, and who was supposed by some to be 
a lawyer (although Sir Philip Francis, then a 
clerk in the War Office, is now ascertained, 



the Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester, have lately made 
the very awkward discovery that the bond given on 
grant of the licence for William Shalcespeare to marry 
Ann Hathaway is dated 26th November, 1582, while 
the entry in the parish register of the baptism of 
Susanna, their eldest child, is dated 26th May, 1583. 
As Shakespeare, at the time of this misfortune, was a 
lad of eighteen years of age, and Miss Hathaway was 
more than seven years his senior, he could hardly have 
been the seducer ; and I am afraid that she was " no 
better than she should be," whatever imaginary per- 
sonal charms may be imputed to her. 



134 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

beyond all doubt, to have been the man), in 
bis address to the English nation, speaking 
of the House of Commons, and wishing to say 
that the beneficial interest in the state be- 
longs to the people, and not to their represent- 
atives, says, "They are only trustees; the/ec 
is in us/' Now every attorney's clerk knows 
that when land is held in trust, the fee (or 
legal estate) is in the trustee, and that the 
beneficiary has only an equitable interest. 
While Novelists and Dramatists are constant- 
ly making mistakes as to the law of marriage, 
of wills, and of inheritance, — to Shakespeare's 
law, lavishly as he propounds it, there can 
neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions, 
nor writ of error. 

He is no doubt equally accurate in refer- 
ring to some other professions, but these refer- 
ences are rare and comparatively slight. 
Some have contended that he must have been 
by trade a gardener, from the conversation, in 
the ' Winter's Tale,' between Perdita, Po- 
lixenes, and Florizel, about raising carnations 
and gillifloivers, and the skilful grafting of 
fruit trees. Others have contended that 



HIS EEFEEENCES TO OTHEE PEOFESSIONS. 135 

Shakespeare must have been Ired to the sea, 
from the nautical language in which directions 
are given for the manoeuvring of the ship in 
the ' Tempest/ and from the graj)hic descrip- 
tion in Henry lY/s soliloquy of the " high and 
giddy mast/' of the " ruffian billows/' of the 
" slippery shrotrds/' and of " seahng up the 
ship boy's eyes." Nay, notwithstanding the 
admonition to be found in his works, " Throw 
physic to the dogs/' it has been gravely sug- 
gested that he must have been initiated in 
medicine, from the minute inventory of the 
contents of the apothecary's shop in ^ Eomeo 
and Juliet.' But the descriptions thus re- 
lied upon, however minute, exact, and pictu- 
resque, will be found to be the result of casual 
observation, and they prove only nice percep- 
tion, accurate recollection, and extraordinary 
power of pictorial language. Take the last 
instance referred to — Komeo's photograph of 
the apothecary and his shop. 

" Meagre were his looks. 
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones : 
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
An alligator stuffed, and other skins 



13(3 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

Of ill-shaped fishes ; and about his shelves 
A beggarly account of empty boxes. 
Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, 
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses. 
Were thinly scattered to make up a show." 

(Act V. Sc. 1.) 

Any observing customer, wlio'liad once enter- 
ed the sliop to buy a dose of rbubarb, might 
have safely given a similar account of what 
he saw, although utterly ignorant of Galen 
and Hippocrates. But let a non-professional 
man, however acute, presume to talk law, or 
to draw illustrations from legal science in 
discussing other subjects, and he will very 
speedily fall into some laughable absurdity. 

To conclude my Bumming up of the evi- 
dence under this head, I say, if Shakespeare 
is shown to have possessed a knowledge of 
law, which he might have acquired as clerk 
in an attorney's office in Stratford, and which 
he could have acquired in no other way, we 
are justified in believing the fact that he was 
a clerk in an attorney's office at Stratford, 
without any direct proof of the fact. Logi- 
cians and jurists allow us to infer a fact of 



STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 137 

whicli there is no direct proof, from facts ex- 
pressly proved, if the fact to be inferred may 
have existed, if it he consistent with all other 
facts known to exist, and if facts known to 
exist can only he accounted for by inferring 
the fact to he inferred. 

But, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, you must 
not from all this suppose that I have really 
become an absolute convert to your side of 
the question, ^neas, while in the shades 
below, for a time believed in the reality of all 
he seemed to see and to hear; but, when dis- 
missed through the ivory gate, he found that 
he had been dreaming. I hope that my argu- 
ments do not " come like shadows, so depart." 
Still I must warn you that I myself remain 
rather sceptical. All that I can admit to you 
is that you may be right, and that while there 
is weighty evidence for you, there is nothing 
conclusive against you. 

Eesuming the Judge, however, I mast lay 
down that your opponents are not called upon 
to prove a negative, and that the onus pro- 
handi rests upon you. You must likewise re- 
member that you require us implicitly to be- 



138 shaxespeaee's legal acquieements. 

lieve a fact, wliich, were it true, positive and 
irrefragable evidence in Shakespeare's own 
handwriting might have been forthcoming to 
establish it. Not having been actually inroll- 
ed as an attorney, neither the records of the 
local court at Stratford, nor of the superior 
courts at Westminster, would present his 
name, as being concerned in any suits as an 
attorney ; but it might have been reasonably 
expected that there would have been deeds or 
wills witnessed by him still extant ; — and, 
after a very diligent search, none such can be 
discovered. Nor can this consideration be 
disregarded, that between Nash's Epistle in 
the end of the 16th century, and Chalmers's 
suggestion more than two hundred years after, 
there is no hint by his foes or his friends of 
Shakespeare having consumed pens, paper, 
ink, and pounce in an attorney's office at 
Stratford.* 

I am quite serious and sincere in what I 



* " Three years I sat his smoky room in 
Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consumin'." 

Pleader'^s Guide. 



STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 139 

have written about Nash and Eobert Greene 
having asserted the fact ; hnt I by no means 
think" that on this ground alone it must neces- 
sarily be taken for truth. Their statement 
that he had belonged to the profession of the 
law may be as false as that he was a plagiarist 
from Seneca. Nash and Kobert Greene may 
have invented it, or repeated it on some 
groundless rumour. Shakespeare may have 
contradicted and refuted it twenty times ; or, 
not thinking it discreditable, though untrue, 
he may have thought it undeserving of any 
notice. Observing what fictitious statements 
are introduced into the published " Lives " of 
living individuals, in our own time, when 
truth in such matters can be so much more 
easily ascertained, and error so much more 
easily corrected, we should be slow to give 
faith to an uncorroborated statement made 
near three centuries ago by persons who were 
evidently actuated by malice.* 



* In several successive Lives of Lord Chief Justice 
Campbell it is related that, by going for a few weeks to 
Ireland as Chancellor, he obtained a pension of 40007. a 
year, which he has ever since received, thereby robbing 



140 shakespeake's legal acquirements. 

What you liave mainly to rely upon (and 
this consideration may prevail in your favour 
with a large majority of the literary world) is 
the seemingly utter impossibility of Shake- 
speare having acquired^ on any other theory, 
the wonderful knowdedge of law which he un- 
doubtedly displays. But we must bear in 
mind that, although he was a mortal man, 
and nothing miraculous can be attributed to 
him, he was intellectually the most gifted of 



the public ; whereas in truth and in fact, he made it a 
stipulation on his going to Ii;eland that he should re- 
ceive no pension — and pension he never did receive — 
and, without pension or place, for years after he re- 
turned from Ireland he regularly served the public in 
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and in 
the judicial business of the House of Lords. This er- 
roneous statement is to be found in a recent Life of 
Lord C, which is upon the whole laudatory above due 
measure, but in which the author laments that there 
was one fault to be imputed to him which could not be 
passed over by an impartial biographer, viz., that he 
had most improperly obtained this Irish pension, which 
he still continues to receive without any benefit being 
derived by the public from his services. — Lord C. ought 
to speak tenderly of Biographers^ but I am afraid that 
the}^ may sometimes be justly compared to the hogs of 
Westphalia, who without discrimination pick up what 
falls from one another. 



STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 141 

mankind, and that he was capable of acquir- 
ing knowledge where the opportunities he en- 
joyed would have been insufficient for any 
other. Supposing that John the father hved 
as a gentleman, or respectably carried on 
trade as one of the princi23al inhabitants of 
the town, and that AVilham the son, from the 
time of leaving the grammar-school till he 
went to London, resided with his father, as- 
sisting him in the management of his houses 
and land and any ancillary business carried on 
by him, — the son might have been in the 
habit of attending trials in the Stratford 
Court of Kecord, and when of age he might 
have been summoned to serve as a juryman 
there or at the Court Leet ; he might have 
been intimate with some of the attorneys who 
practised in the town and with their clerks, 
and while in their comj)any at fairs, wakes, 
church ales, bowling-, bell-ringing-, and hurl- 
ing-matches, he might not only have picked 
up some of their professional jargon, but gain- 
ed some insight into the principles of their 
calling, which are not without interest to the 
curious. 



142 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 

Moreover, it is to be considered that, al- 
thoTigL. Shakespeare in 1589 was unquestion- 
ably a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre, 
and had trod the boards as an actor, the time 
when he began to write for the stage is uncer- 
tain ; and we are not in possession of any piece 
which we assuredly know to have been written 
and finished by him before the year 1592. 
Thus there was a long interval between his 
arrival in London and the publication of any 
of the dramas from which my selections are 
made. In this interval he was no doubt con- 
versant with all sorts and conditions of men. 
I am sorry to say I cannot discover that at 
any period of his life Lord Chancellors or Lord 
Chief Justices showed the good taste to culti- 
vate his acquaintance. "•'•■ But he must have 
been intimate with the students at the Inns 
of Court, who were in the habit of playing 
before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich, as he 



* Although it is said that Shakespeare was intro- 
duced to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, Lord Somers is 
the first legal dignitary I find forming friendships with 
literary men. 



STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 143 

took a part in tliese court theatricals ; and 
the author^ in all probability^ was- present 
among the lawyers when ' Twelfth Night ' 
was brought out at the Eeaders' Feast in the 
Middle Temple, and when ^ Othello ' was 
acted at Lord Chancellor EUesmere's before 
Queen Elizabeth. 

Shakespeare, during his first years in 
London, when his purse was low, may have 
dined at the ordinary in Alsatia, thus de- 
scribed by Dekker, where he may have had a 
daily surfeit of law, if, with his universal 
thirst for knowledge, he had any desire to 
drink deeply at this muddy fountain : 

" There is another ordinary at which your London 
usurer, your stale bachelor and your thrifty attorney 
do resort ; the price three-pence ; the rooms as full of 
company as a gaol ; and indeed divided into seyeral 
wards, like the beds of an hospital. * * * If they 
chance to discourse, it is of nothing but of statutes, 
do7ids, recognizances, fines, reco^evies, audits, rents, sub- 
sidies, sureties, enclosures, liveries, indictments, outlaio- 
Ties, feoffments, judgments, commissions, Tjanlcru^pts, 
amercements, and of such horrible matter." — DeMer^s 
GuWs EornlooTc, 1609. 

In such company a willing listener might 



144: Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

soon make great progress in law ; and it may- 
be urged, that I have unconsciously exagger- 
ated the difficulty to be encountered by Shake- 
speare in picking up his knowledge of that 
which I myself have been so long labouring to 
understand. Many may tliink that Shake- 
speare resembles his own Prince Hal, when 
reformed and become Henry V., who, not- 
withstanding his revels in East Cheap, and 
with no apparent opportunities of acquiring 
the knowledge he displayed, astonished the 
world with his universal wisdom : 

" Hear him but reason in divinity, 
Andj all-admiring, with an inward wish, 
You would desire the king were made a prelate. 
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 
You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study. 
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 
A fearful battle render'd you in music. 
Turn him to any cause of policy. 
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose 
Familiar as his garter ; that, when he speaks, 
The air, a chartered libertine, is still. 
And the mute wonder lurketh in man's ears 
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences ; 
So that the art, and practick part of life, 
Must be the mistress to this theorick." 

Eenry V., Act i. Sc. 1. 



CONCLUSION. 145 

We cannot argue with confidence on the 
principles which would guide us to safe con- 
clusions respecting ordinary men, when we 
are reasoning respecting one of whom it was 

truly baid : 

"Each change of many -coloured life he drew. 
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new ; 
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
And panting Time toiled after him in vain." 

And now, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, I 
must conclude. Long ago, I dare say, you 
were heartily sorry that you ever thought of 
taking the opinion of counsel on this knotty 
point ; and at last you may not only exclaim, 
" I am no wiser than I was," but shaking your 
head, like old Demipho in ' Terence,' after 
being present at a consultation of lawyers on 
the vahdity of his son's marriage, you may 
sigh and say, " Incertior sum multo quam 
dudum." 

However, if my scepticism and my argu- 
mentation (worthy of Serjeant Eitherside) 
should stimulate you deliberately to reconsider 

the question, and to communicate your ma- 

7 



146 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 

tured judgment to the world, I shall not have 
doubted or hallucinated in vain. By another 
outpouring of your Shakespearian lore you 
may entirely convince, and at aU events you 
will much gratify, 

Your sincere admirer and friend, 
(Signed) Campbell. 



THE END. 



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